A Little Green on a Gray Day
March on the Jersey Shore, a parade of characters, and the strange power of color to wake something up again.
When I woke yesterday, the sky looked exactly like it had all week: gray, wet, and heavy. March on the Jersey Shore is like that. It’s an in-between month. Winter hasn’t quite left, spring hasn’t really arrived, and everything feels a little muted.
If I’m honest, I’ve been feeling that way too.
I haven’t felt especially inspired to create lately. There’s only so much fog you can photograph before the fog starts seeping into your own head. I’m usually someone who looks at the ordinary and finds a way to make it extra-ordinary — a bit of light, a gesture, a small moment that makes me stop and notice. But lately that’s been harder to see. Too many roadblocks, too many creative stalls, and the financial realities of being an artist can weigh on the spirit.
Still, I grabbed my camera and headed over to Asbury Park’s annual St. Paddy’s Day parade.
And somewhere along the way, something shifted.
Maybe it was the green: the hats, the glasses, the coats, the ridiculous costumes. Maybe it was the humor. Maybe it was just being surrounded by people again after a long gray stretch of winter. But slowly the day warmed. The sun pushed through the clouds, and before long, I was actually sweating, camera in hand, photographing the characters of the day, the ones marching and the ones just as entertaining standing along the route.
Sometimes all it takes is an infusion of color.
Yesterday, it was green that made the sun shine.
Later, I sat outside my building talking with neighbors I hadn’t seen in a while. Maybe we had all been hibernating. The gray started to creep back in, the way it does here, but I realized I had already gathered enough color to see the light.1
Maybe green really is the color that brings the light back. Maybe the Irish Americans knew something the rest of us forget every winter, that after months of grey skies and salt-stained streets, the first real sign of life is always green.
Or maybe it just reminded my creativity to wake up again.
Either way… I’ll take it
All images © Sue Barr Photo 2026