Brown

Brown is the color of winter in Albuquerque. It isn’t black and white like they say in the books on color. Black and white is for the east coast, or the Midwest, where there is consistent snow cover and moisture to darken the bark of trees. Here in the sunbleached yet cold winter areas of the southwest, the color is brown. It isn’t predominantly dark brown either, unless it is artificially imposed, but the muted colors of biscuit, sand, taupe. Designers would call these colors like “seal,” “toasted wheat,” or “cappuccino” (what a bizarre job that would be to create names for colors). There are some silver-browns, such as the bark on the young twigs of the native oaks, or mountain mahogany. There are some rose-reds (Some of the many species of Opuntia that I can never keep in my head), or rust reds (Schizachyrium scoparium). There are some greens, particularly in the foothills: dark greens (pinon trees), yellow greens (Juniperus monosperma), and olive greens (Opuntia engelmanii, Nolina texana), but predominantly, the color of winter is brown.

Brown isn‘t what I’m used to for winter. Growing up on the California coast, the color of winter was green. Green in all its lusciousness. The green of winter grasses, of succulents like jade plant and aloes, the truly olive green of olive trees (can you get olive green more true than that?), the matt greens of the evergreen oaks, the shiny greens of ceanothus leaves…you don’t come by those colors very often here, and when you do, they look out of place.



Brown is a color that I’m getting used to for winter. I surprised myself by looking out my window, seeing the silvery tan of the Apache plume in my garden, and thinking how nice it looked. There is a romanticism in tans that is just as strong as the winter snows against black trunks, as the mysterious fogs and misty landscapes of other locales. The tans are evocative of the harsh climate of the desert southwest, of the blazing sun combined with lack of moisture, the dessicating winds and high altitude (I live just above a mile up). It is a rugged beauty. These tans turn various colors as the sun goes down, the most famous watermelon color that gives the mountain range its name.



Brown may not be a color that I long for in winter. I will always dream of my California greens. But I am coming to appreciate brown.