In 1989, NASA showed that houseplants are beneficial for your health: they can remove chemicals from the air, improving air quality and humidity. Houseplants are more common, cheaper, and of better quality in Amsterdam than I’ve ever found in England, and there seems to be something particularly Dutch about plant-filled window sills. The message seems to be: keep the windows clean and the plants aplenty. Greenery is gezelligheid.
But appreciating greenness is not just a Dutch (or British) trait: the Japanese concept of ‘forest bathing’ (Shinrin-yoku) was developed in the 1980s as a therapeutic form of healing through mindful immersion in nature. The term became popularized on social media last year, and spawned several books. But it’s not a new idea: the benefit of being outdoors – specifically, in the great, green outdoors – has been known and observed for centuries.
During the Renaissance, it was believed that green was the easiest color for the eye to behold, falling in the middle of the light spectrum, between white and black. But green was not only a color, it was a metaphor, a mentality – it reflected innocence and growth, as well as signalled hope. In the modern world, the primary association of the color is that green means go. Go get it. As Lorde sang in Green Light, the song I listened to while walking home after every one of my final exams, “I’m waiting for it, that green light, I want it.” Green is optimism and yearning.
Today, as Extinction Rebellion protests disrupt central London, the environmental associations of the color are more relevant. Green and blue, earth and sky – our planet is host to rainbows, but its greenness needs protecting. So go outside, have a walk in the park, and relish the bounty of green in our city. But remember that while greenery is necessary, and in Amsterdam relatively plenteous, it is also vulnerable.
Preserving the greenness of the world is not only ecologically important for our own communities, but selfishly, green is vital for our sense of selves.