Edward Hopper: The Evening Wind (1921)

"Just that breath of Spring reset the calendar."

In early January, I told myself that Winter was here for good. After a week or two of chilling temperatures and slick roads, I'm more than ready to hibernate until Spring. Everything freezes, even beliefs. Impossibilities come to dominate, and hope wisely recedes into some obscure corner. I go on autopilot and nap more than seems healthy. Then, I take an initiative. Just a small one, a chore I've been avoiding since we first bought this place. A typical obligation for which the proper time to dispatch it conveniently never arrived. A home properly contains a few dozen of these embarrassments. They understandably rarely, if ever, get addressed, so it seems newsworthy if one finally gets dispatched.

Just starting helps. A good beginning seems just as successful as any completion. A wrinkle opens in time, and I step into and through it. Before I realize, I'm engaged in the long-standing unthinkable. It even seems possible. Outside, the property's been snowbound for at least a fortnight. Inside, a fair wind threatens to scour out an old stuckness. These tend to be houses of cards. They might seem as though they'll stand forever, but when they tumble, a simple card trick seems to get them started. Then, the shift's inexorable. One thing suddenly and surprisingly leads directly into another, and it's begun.

Outside, unnoticed even to those watching, a fair wind starts blowing. It starts scouring out the subfreezing air, and it feels like Spring out there in minutes. A Chinook arrives, bringing tropical moisture and unseasonal temperatures, transforming the place. The lawn turns green in minutes. Trees lose their shrouds. What seemed forever disappears. What seemed impossible arrives. I walk around in shirtsleeves, astounded. Just when I figured we were in for at least six more weeks of Winter, the season shifted. If it didn't come as a surprise, it couldn't have been nearly as effective in eradicating those blues. The whole world seems to Chinook, my internal world, too. What had grown suffocating breathes a deep draft of difference.

The Muse insisted upon painting the second coat on the basement kitchen walls. She also insisted upon mopping the floor in preparation for paint. I crawled with a stiff-bristled brush, scrubbing loose decades of abuse. That corner we'd always almost tolerated will soon be a space we'll relish. What had devolved into a continuing form of abuse will transform into a blessing. What had been happening in our basement migrated to involve the whole visible world, horizon to horizon, ground up into the sky. The entire world started Chinooking just after I'd ceased shirking; that long-standing unfinished business, once addressed, instantly changed everything. The valleys and draws lost their chill up into the foothills and also between my ears. Spring Is Here! I cannot care if Winter returns tomorrow and stays until Easter. Just that breath of Spring reset my internal calendar and my internal dialogue. Just that touch of paint remade everything.

©2024 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

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