Summer is one of the most cherished seasons in Europe. Its charm has been celebrated for centuries, and one need only glance at Shakespeare's sonnets to see how he glorifies its beauty. Personally, I also love summer, especially for the radiant blue of the sky. It's a deep, vibrant hue, which I prefer to describe as a "beautiful blue."
Leaving Europe for the summer, I said goodbye to the deep blue skies to return to the tropics for the rainy season. Upon arrival, I was greeted by a cloudy sky, dominated by gray clouds. It seemed that nature was not smiling on me, as if it had conspired to take away my joy and hope, replacing the lively blue with a somber gray. I had traded "beautiful blue" for "dull gray." Days passed, and prejudices toward the gray weather began to affect my mood. I began to perceive the gray sky as lacking beauty, believing it would doom me to a series of drab, lifeless days.
In this state of mind, little by little he fell into what he G.K. Chesterton describes it as the "heresy" to label a gray day as "colorless." He asserts the opposite, asserting that gray is, in fact, a color, a powerful and pleasing one. If blue is beautiful, so is gray. If blue is vibrant, gray is equally rich. So why do we equate gray with lifelessness? Gray has its own beauty and richness, with a unique ability to complement and enhance other colors. My nostalgia for the blue skies of summer had blinded me to the subtle splendor of gray.
Let's stop to consider the great capacity for change and adaptation that the color gray possesses. There is strength in diversity, and gray has a lot of it. Let's think about the many shades of gray; someone once said there are fifty, but I disagree. It could be forty-nine or fifty-one, I don't care. What matters is the incredible range of its expressions. Some days, the gray clouds gleam like silver; other days, they evoke the gleam of steel, the softness of a dove's plumage, or the pale beauty of ashes, a reminder of that solemn Ash Wednesday.
At times, the clouds become dense and heavy, resembling the machinery of a steel factory. They hold the rain inside and release it as delicate streams falling on rooftops and streets, turning the gray sky into a great steel pipe maker, long tubes of water. "Pour down the rain, heavens, from above!" we might exclaim, marveling at their generosity. Rorate Caeli!
Gray skies are not only beautiful in their own right, they are also catalysts for other colors. They are generous, they make other colors more vivid. When the rains come, they paint the earth brighter greens and deeper reds; we have greener foliage and redder mud.
Do we still need to doubt the beauties of gray? Not only does it allow other colors to bloom, but it also knows how to mix and match with them. I used to wonder why my students matched gray pants or skirts with pink blouses or blue shirts, until I watched the sunrise filtering through gray clouds.
The subtle interplay of gray with the pinks and oranges of sunrise or sunset reflects the choices of these uniforms: the influence of nature at its finest. Also, the patches of gray clouds scattered in a blue sky fit perfectly. I've stopped asking myself that question.
Will we continue to sing the glories of gray? The gray clouds act like a great parasol over the earth, an umbrella that attenuates the sun's rays that reach us, making its warmth more pleasant, more human.
Gray, although a distinctive color, has something of an intermediate character. The dictionary will tell us that it is an intermediate color between black and white. It always seems to be on the verge of something, on the threshold of evolving; to see it is to be on the verge of witnessing a change.
Chesterton captures this essence beautifully, noting that gray exists so that "we may be perpetually reminded of the indefinite hope that is in doubt itself; and when there is gray weather on our hills or gray hair on our heads, we may still be reminded of morning."
Gray is, without a doubt, a glorious color. And if anyone still has doubts, consider this: I have written this essay with a lead pencil, a tool as gray as the skies I have come to admire.
