Robert William Vonnoh: Spring in France (1890)

"Some things never leave …"

A short ninety-one days ago, I landed on this shore which, today, starts heading for the door, chased off by overwhelming forces. The Solstice shoves away the powers that brought it about, Spring, which does all the heavy lifting, carrying in the longest day of the year. Spring leaves just before the beginning of the slow decline which, a mere one hundred eighty-two days hence will find us facing the final few days before Christmas from the shortest day of the year. Fear Summer, I say, and Autumn. Winter starts the renewal Spring finishes. The lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer will squander their inheritance, leaving us with less light and ever later sunrises. Spring was always the life-giver, Summer, the taker.

By the day before the Summer Solstice, Spring has sprung and just about Sprunged, an irretrievable state. I'm strapped in, speeding up my engagement, just as if I could catch up with all I let fall behind through the passing season. I committed the minor sin of over-estimation, my eyes were bigger than my stomach, my aspirations, unbalanced with my capabilities. I'd imagined myself finishing the repainting about now. I'm by my counting, something less than a third of the way through. Spring always was an iffy palate, unpredictable and callous. It could not care less what I accomplished. It had more important business, earlier mornings and later sunsets. My problems never amounted to more than one of those hills of beans The Muse planted in the garden this Spring.

Spring in this Garden of Eden overlooking The Center of the Universe always exceeds expectations. The roses alone seem worth whatever the price of admission, but they're almost bit players now, complemented and almost overshadowed by the crab apples, honeysuckle, and iris. I feel as though I neglected my garden this Spring, favoring hanging from the scaffolding and stripping siding boards, both infrequent efforts I will not be repeating soon, if ever. I figured that I could neglect my garden for one Spring season, that I had ample good reasons for focusing elsewhere for a while. The time lost turned out to be non-refundable.

I am increasingly aware that I possess an at best tenuous balance, that the world I imaging myself inhabiting is a wasting one, inexorably departing. This particular happily-ever-after ending lacks an infinite edge. It most certainly will be ending. Each Spring might just become the last time through for me. This is not a perpetual motion machine, but much more fragile. I, of course, must inhabit the infinite, never really knowing, no more than suspecting the presence of any edge. I might be obligated to be profligate, to waste many days, to fall short of expansive expectations. I represent The Human Condition here, in all of its degregate glory. My endings, beginnings. My beginnings, ultimately endings, too.

This Spring brought me the great gift of self doubt. I found out that I possessed some new limits, ones I'd not imagined myself owning before, probably because I didn't own them until now. Now I know, though I do not yet know if any of these will become permanent conditions or if they're just symptoms of rarely experienced situations. It might be that once I return the scaffolding to the rental agency, I'll never again notice any discomfort in that knee. Or maybe that knee will become my very own public enemy number one. I might have contracted arthritis in my hands or I might just feel normal stiffness from hours holding sander and paint brush. Nobody knows. Not yet. I only know for certain that this Spring which arrived with so damned much promise, exits the stage tomorrow, never to return. Next Spring will find me writing on some other subject beside Reconning. I feel certain it will find me writing. Some things never leave no matter how Sprunged.

©2022 by David A. Schmaltz - all rights reserved

Tags: #Reconning, #PureSchmaltz