Green Light

Gatsby? The filtering of sun through summer leaves, the tender new ones, maple probably, seen and felt from underneath the branches. Or from within, among the branches, a childhood haunt (and oh, the identification with Betsy Ray from Betsy and Tacy, who also climbed trees with notebook and pencil).

How funny that it does't come to me until much later that "green light" also means "go." My mind, sleepy after a long night of infant snuggles, turns to the literal, the sensory. The nuance of metaphor is lost on me.

But yes, go. You've waited long enough.

I live in a town without any green lights. They're all flashing red, four-way stops. It never occurred to me as a child in the busy suburban Midwest that I would live as an adult in a two-light town, neither of them with all three colours.

The feeling of the gas pedal under my foot, in flip-flops, in heels, in boots. Mostly these days in boots. The pleasure of approaching an intersection with a green, and no traffic, just sailing through. This would probably be metaphor material if I were thinking that way today: the slick ease of carrying on where otherwise there might be a pause.

Better: the leaflight. Green sheets drying on the line. Grass glow. Sea glass.


(thank you, Write ALM, for the inspiration)