In contrast to the verdant rapture of green, and the overtime bittersweet rally of yellow, it’s time to slog through, so as not to bog down in, brown.

If Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes, October in SE Alaska is the land of 10,000 atmospheric rivers. Epic rains make mud before washing it to sea. Even the ocean, like the wetlands around it, succumbs some days to brown. Most ferns have sent their chlorophyll packing, and Devil’s Club sends up a few futile yellow flares. Meanwhile mushrooms claim their place as if it’s the ’70s again, and it’s somehow cool to wear brown. (I wish I could forget my Dad’s brown suit, as he came home from yet another bad day in the recession, parking his beige wood-paneled Dodge Aspen. It’s amazing he didn’t disown us on the 100th try at “How’s your Aspen, Dad?”)

Wet logs, wet soil, wet dog, wet Tom. Hello, ides of October.

  • Ferns’ chlorophyll fling is over.
  • Her tongue, at least, is a real color.
  • Brown water fun
  • When I wore this old hunting jacket this week, she freaked out and kept smelling my hand to make sure it was me. Maybe I was too well camouflaged?
  • We lost two big trees above the cul de sac this week.
  • Is her tail brown?
  • The truck avoids the “brown” problem. Depending on who you ask it’s either Band-Aid, or “Desert Rose” (or sandstone?). No, Dad, it is not beige.

Brown is actually kind of a trip. I’ve learned that it’s not really a color. It’s just a human construct. I guess that makes sense. It’s not in the rainbow. There is no brown light. This computer monitor, which makes its colors by combining red, green, and blue lights, actually can’t make brown. (Turns out, red, blue, and green actually correspond to the colors our eyes’ cone-cells are best at seeing.) The monitor can only make dark orange, which, I’m told we only see as brown because of contrast or context. We see brown, and not dark orange, because of lighter images or sections of an image that provide contrast, or because of elements of context: that furry Volkswagen with legs and beady eyes is a brown bear; no time for debate.

Apparently, brown is an eye problem and a brain problem.

Juneau, we have a problem. Do I no longer have a brown dog? Is my dog, too, just a figment of my imagination? (Some days I wish.) And if she can be orange, why can’t my hair again be orange? (After last week’s trip to the Navajo Nation, I’ve decided my hair is sandstone, anyway. ) It also turns out that words for brown tend to evolve later (and in fact never appear in some) in languages. It’s as if even nature denies this state of things, and eventually, begrudgingly, we name it into existence.

But wait. All is not lost or turning to mud. A little new-age psychology will redeem this post. Here’s brown, all comforting and strong, with a little loneliness and vastness and isolation thrown in just to keep it real. Who knew a color actually had meaning?

“Brown Color Psychology: What Does the Color Brown Mean?”

And it may be even better. Even though water seems to be winning–especially the brown water–a bit of Feng Shui from the same article brings a sucker hole of hope. “Blue is a good color to combine with brown because of the earth-water harmony.”

Forecast for tomorrow is only partly cloudy. And my brownish dog — orange though she may be–is sleeping peacefully, evoking warmth, comfort, and security.