On from the Emerald City

Pantone has declared emerald green to be the colour of 2013. It happens to be one of my favorite colours (and after a few years of blech colours like honeysuckle and tangerine, it’s about time to bring jewels back).

Coincidentally the Christmas play put on by the globe theatre this year was The Wizard of Oz (which as most probably know was originally titled The Emerald City). I read the stories when I was younger (it was a surprise to find the slippers were silver and the winged monkeys significantly less horrifically terrifying than in the movie--also getting PTSD again from the fact that the Broadview school library probably threw them AWAY without even making them available to book vultures Moores). Anyway, emerald was the colour of hope--the Emerald City in which the wizard resided was twice a destination of the original story, ostensibly the only way to get what one really wanted or needed. Or where people thought they got what they wanted or needed. As in real life, sometimes we find we’ve put our faith in a lot of humbug when the answer was ridiculously simple all along. Maybe it's just that we have a few extra things to learn by taking the scenic route a couple of times through Oz.

Given all of that, 2013 has been the emerald year for me long before Pantone decided to make it official. It is the final stop on a journey through a strange world full of the bizarre and sometimes scary; pressing on with the hope of something precious at the end of the road. And now I’m finally here, ready to find out what “arrival” really means.

As expected, it turns out the arrival is the beginning of a new journey. Suddenly possessing the spoils of the victory means you have to use them. What does it mean to realize one has what was wanted and how does one move on from victory to the realities of what that victory brings? Don’t really know, but I have a feeling I’ll find out--and I’ll probably be back again some day. Besides, though the “emerald” was originally a trick produced by wearing green glasses, eventually the stories spoke of it as a reality. At some point we really do arrive in the place we think we’ve been going all along. Little arrivals always remind us of the final one.

I called 2009 my silver year, not realizing that silver shoes may take you anywhere you want to go, but that means you have to go. It was all so simple and so difficult at once. And now here is my emerald year, the jewel to set in the middle of it all.

Now I just need a golden cap to control those winged monkeys. Mwa HAHAHAH...okay nevermind about that.