light

I’m sitting in the living room of the farmhouse, watching the light. It’s quite a show.

People in houses (rather than apartments or condos) do, of course, typically have light coming from any number of places. But what’s fascinating about this little house is that if you sit in the living room, you can look to your right and face an east window, look ahead and see the world to the north, to the left – the western skies, and in back of you, there are the southern hills.

It’s not that the living room itself is especially full of windows. It has only one (west facing). But it has all these little rooms feeding off of it. I feel like I am in the head of an octopus and my arms are reaching out to the world.

So in the morning, if you look out the west window, you can tell it’s a sunny day, but it is a diffuse light.



(I'm in the kitchen here)


Anyway, I know this is such a ho hum thing, but right now, it’s evening and I am watching the light.


Earlier, I faced one of the big objections I had to moving here: there are a lot of floorboards. Wall to wall carpeting may be so retro, but it hides a lot of dust. You can’t get by with missed cleanings too long with wood floors. It shows. I’ve been in the farmhouse for ten days now, and it is time to clean.

On the upside, if movement rather than couch potato status is good for your health, I'll gain years of life here (if I don’t die first driving down country lanes without headlights – see previous post).

Ed is away today, sailing with his friend. Out on Lake Michigan. May they survive the winds and cold waters -- is all I can say (I politely declined the only half-serious invitation to join them.) I am alone here, for the first time. It gives me a chance to take stock. To contemplate things a bit.

I would have enjoyed a chance to sit outside and watch birds swoop from one tree to the next, but there was a brutal cool wind blowing. I opted for more weeding and maintenance work outdoors. At the local nursery, I noted that their usual varieties of annuals were not yet outside for our shopping pleasure. I see the signs, too.





Crazy spring, the sales person tells me. I ask her -- so, you think I should hold off with plantings? The earth’s too cold still! Crazy spring.

Crazy...maybe. But I’ve been through 31 springs in Madison. This one is on the cool side, yes, there’s that. But the days are so long now and the trees are nearly green and the flowers are clinging tenaciously to the promise of warmer days. Who can complain?!

In the meantime, the sun moves down, blinding me for a brief second from my left. Beautiful.






And, toward the east, beams of light from that western exposure throw dappled reflections against glass paned doors.






May light. Brutally strong and blissfully long lasting. And still, I’m glad Ed is driving my 93 Ford tonight. His 92 Geo needs tinkering to get the lights going without fail.