Spring’s Light

The other day I happened to be home, inside my house and probably caught up in some art project, when I began thinking that something rather odd was occurring. 

Something had moved, or gotten louder. Something had gotten bigger, or had shrunk. Somebody across the street had finally taken their holiday lights down. I didn't have a clue, really. The only thing I sensed was that it just wasn’t the same as the previous week. Of that I was more than sure, however. Something out there was different.

Still, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, the thing on the other side of the glass.

Of course you couldn’t. It’s not like you could reach out and touch something.

(This voice is becoming slightly annoying. It’s not clear where this is going.)

I’ll continue, though. I walked around inside for a while, peering into closets, running my hands under four-poster beds, lifting ragged rug corners just a few inches...

What you were looking for was definitely not in any closet.

Nor was it to be found by checking in a few drawers.

Still way off the mark, you know. Did you know that?

I resent being preached to or talked down to. Don’t do it. No, I don’t mean that. I was just trying to be funny. Like you just were. Even if I am not in a laughing mood.

No matter how hard I looked and how many times my inner me scolded me for looking in all the wrong places, I was no closer to figuring out what was happening that had me wondering, trying to discover it, trying to put a finger on it. The thing - if it was a thing - that was outside the big bay window. That I didn’t fear, but felt uneasy not knowing what it was. Nothing more. There could be evil lurking somewhere, even if not right outside my window.

The mystery was driving you crazy, eh? 

The day had only just begun, it seemed, yet as I searched, it was threatening to melt away. I knew I was in danger of not figuring out what was odd about it. Subtle, it was, puzzled, I was, but also determined. My nickname should have been Brick Wall, but it wasn’t. That didn’t mean I didn’t deserve it. I wasn't going to give up my quest.

I even tried looking for an answer to my question on the calendar, when I had seen the silverware drawer and the space above the top shelf in the hall closet had yielded no answers. I can be like the proverbial bulldog when after something, after an answer or an explanation. Ask my friends. Either Brick Wall or Bulldog. Same thing. Both fit. I own them.

You still didn’t find anything, did you? (I’m not easily distracted.)

Of course not, and you know it. All the places I had searched were wrong because it wasn’t something I had put away for safekeeping, that thing outside my window. It was out there and I could see it, wanted to see it. I thought it might even be a good thing. Why do we so often put our beautiful and important possessions in a box or cabinet? That’s where I thought to look, out of habit and conditioning.

However, maybe the calendar wasn’t so far off. Was it something intuitive that made me turn to it? Hardly. There is a very simple answer, involving twelve parts of a year. The part when my feeling of there’s-something-odd-outside occurred was March. That’s my month, as you probably know if you’re reading this story. 

I was in the process of pursuing this logic of the year having twelve months and - for us, at least - four seasons, when something invisible made me stop and listen, at first selecting the wrong frequency and failing to capture it.

And then I finally heard it, heard what can only be described as a soundless voice. That means there is nothing comparable. No sound. No voice. Despite the fact that no person was speaking, for once I had sense enough to listen. Sometimes I don’t do that, I will admit. Too much in a hurry, too wrapped up in myself and my affairs. Too stiff and unfeeling. Too playing it safe.

Good you can admit that.

The voice was written on the air, like fine, gauzy tulle, or the web of an arachnid. I couldn’t see the voice, but it was there all right, it was definitely there. It was telling me something. The words were for me.

You weren’t afraid, were you? After all, voices in the air, words wrapping us in syllables and syntax, aren’t all that common. I am not all that common, trust me. Above all, do not fear me.

No, of course I wasn’t afraid, but I was definitely looking for an answer as to what was going on. Maybe I needed to look harder. It had to be there, somewhere. I was looking for what had changed, beside the extra layer of light that we already talked about. It’s not like I was looking for love, because that definitely is not to be found anywhere in this house. Not romantic love, anyway. Maybe some other kind, one for plants or animals. Or colors or food. I felt the pull of the window-world. I just couldn’t reach it.

Stop babbling. You’ll never find out what it is if you don’t sit still and listen.

I could swear I heard that. I decided to obey the advice, or order, because I was out of options as far as locating the odd thing that was just beyond the edge of my known world, something liminal, like the Amazons or Gog and Magog.

Focus, please. And stop ruminating. You are not a cow.

A Light exists in Spring

Not present on the Year

At any other period —

When March is scarcely here

I knew it! I just knew the calendar was the key to the mystery I’d been stirring up all around me. After all, it was the month of March, like my last name. There could be some connection, could be some connection..., I bet there’s a connection.

The voice in the air is writing again. I can hear it as its fingers move. I feel bolder now, won’t let the disembodied words get the best of me. I will sit tight and listen.

A Color stands abroad

On Solitary Fields

That Science cannot overtake

But Human Nature feels.

First it was the light, and I was just now starting to realize that light was exactly what had been bursting through the glass in my front window. Realizing that you rarely can locate light in a drawer or a closet. The March calendar page reflected that light, however. I looked toward the left, along my small street, and I could definitely see that there was one more layer of light sifting onto the previous, the February layer. The green now held over from late autumn rose up to greet the lightness, but that I hadn’t understood. Until now, perhaps.

All I knew was that my day, my little world, had grown. It had done that, grown, almost overnight. I thought it felt a bit like a mushroom. 

And now I sense that the air-written voice is adding color that stands, maybe even walks, through the fields not visible from my window. Not visible, but not far off. A color? 

What are you saying? Are you greedy?

No, but if I am to head for the fields in search of a color, I think it would be nice to know which one to look for, don’t you think? Plus, now that we’re being honest, why just one? When I was a girl, I loved my mother.

So what does that have to do with this discussion?

Let me finish, please. I loved my mother because we might not have had much money, but she always made sure I had crayons and pencils, coloring books and books. The crayons were the big boxes of 72 colors, with a sharpener in the back and a flip-top. I loved memorizing the names and tried to make my favorite colors last, which went against the logic of wanting to use them in my art.

And your point?

I just wish I could go out in a field and find all 72 colors my mother would give me when she could afford it. That’s probably Human Nature, as was just observed. We want light and its colors, we want the words that name them periwinkle or hyacinth, peony or spice. So I believe that I will take the Color that’s been offered to me and create a kaleidoscope. Thank you, air-voice. It’s been too gray these past few months.

It waits upon the Lawn,

It shows the furthest Tree

Upon the furthest Slope you know

It almost speaks to you.

Here we go again. Nothing ever settles for long in a poem by Emily Dickinson, not really. This has to be Emily talking, I mean. It definitely sounds like her. The Color in the voice that is the writing in the air is now moving from the fields, which are still nearby, to the lawn. Probably my lawn. It is waiting, but its hands are not idle. Color is sketching a tree on its slope. Emily, how did you ever spin that one?

Have you noticed something else about it?

Yes. It seems to be able to stand, move, and wait, not to mention draw. It seems it might speak. Does speak. Color is not silent, just as words and pages, air and light, are not. I am thinking now that March is making this possible, because of that extra layer of light I was talking about. This is illumination found only days 60 through 91 of the year, but mostly around the Ides of March. After that date, which is the 15th, it becomes more obvious and so people take it for granted.

Is Color male or female or not? 

I don’t even care.

Color is here now, and shouting its arrival in a very appealing way. Trills, rustles, caws, flappings, all of these know which page of the calendar they’re on.

Then as Horizons step

Or Noons report away

Without the Formula of sound

It passes and we stay —

What has happened? Color came as promised, and we are silent? Perhaps it was better in mid-March, when there were just two shades, light and green. We might try to master the palette, but it’ll probably have its way with us. I just wish March weren’t the shortest month of the year. It promises so much, and it’s not the much we value, but the promise.

This is exactly what one fears, this time of year. The loss of space between the promise and its delivery. We get used to the idea of spring, and twenty centimeters of snow remind us: not yet not yet ... Fragile, fractal days, tricksters with no ill intentions. Mid-March. Despite everything that could or might happen, this is the beginning of hope. We can’t help it, especially because this is New England. Maine, to be exact. I know very well how this state wears this month, so when I talk about fragile and an extra layer of light, you can say it’s because I’ve lived here, seen it all.

What’s this? Here I am, beginning to feel like there is a possibility I’ll find what I’m searching for, I am optimistic, and believe in my future success, when suddenly something comes to me, through the same unopened March window:

A quality of loss

Affecting our Content

As Trade had suddenly encroached

Upon a Sacrament.

Loss? Unacceptable. Painful beyond words.

My promise is to study these mid-March days. They are few in number. Study them for their ability to penetrate the human brain with new eyes and desires. We don’t need to lose them, as if they were gardenia bushes whose fragrance wilts far too soon. We need to extract the essence of month number three and provide it without charge to anyone who requests it. We think the extract will have the scent of hope and the flavor of life.

*****

Epilogue

As I look back over the previous section, I find myself wondering what led me to notice something odd, but not frightening, outside my window. I’ve considered pure chance, my good eyesight, and poetry to be possible reasons. 

When I think about that, I realize it probably doesn’t matter which came first. 

And I’m always up for reading more Emily Dickinson. But you probably knew that.