California is named the Golden State. Obviously this is because the gold rush in the mid eighteen hundreds responsible for its eventual statehood. Okay, fine. However, for whatever reason, I have always thought that on some level California gets its goldenness from the seemingly unending hills rolling from coast inland, up and down its more central parts. Despite the annual brevity of change when these hills turn shades of something more lively, the golden landscape between sea and valley makes up much of California's identity for me. If California had a foil to its golden whiskers along its unshaven face, however, the north island of New Zealand may be it.
Here it is not for a few weeks out of the year, but rather a constant and unending green that occupies each view. It fills your every look like water rushing in a sinking ship. It shifts in and around forestland spared or yet to be cut, it is speckled by cows of varying colors and the white of sheep. It gets covered over by the low-lying texture of darker green bush—its own texture marked by the hooves of grazers there to keep its height in check. It is the color green you intended for when you over-saturate your photographs. It is the color green crayon you used as a child for the hills that sat just below your five-sided house. Its the color green that’s always greener on the other side of the fence. Even when it gets covered by changing shades from forest and bush, it reappears like pockets of blue sky playing backdrop to the shifting white clouds. It is this green that marks the landscape and sometimes even remains after closing your eyes. A most beautiful green. But sometimes I do find myself thinking about that gold.
*the image used as the default background for Windows XP was taken, of course, in no place other than the golden state of California