There is a small change in the angle of the light and that
smell which is so difficult to characterize. The temperature pitched briefly
before the ice storm this weekend, and though the temperature has done that
dozens of times over the course of the last two months, this time it was different.
The air felt less oppressive somehow and even the later cold was moist and not
quite as biting as it had been. The white-gray of the clouds deepened to a dark gray-blue and the pastel tones of winter suddenly dropped out of the sky. I’d think I was
crazy for noticing, but the geese agree with me—most of them have taken wing to
head back toward Canadian homes and you can see water at the local hot springs
again.
The first breaths of spring are a welcome sensation at the
end of a northern winter, but while it normally makes me ecstatic, this year it
feels like small comfort. I have surgery in a few days and this annoys me
greatly because it means I will have to pause learning how to mix the
particular colors of the spring-dawn sky to recover from it. I spent yesterday
looking at professional watercolors online because I am already at the point
where the quality of my materials is limiting what I can and can’t do. On some
level, I know I should wait to make any such purchase until after I find out
how much this surgery (and the accompanying follow-up procedure) is going to
cost. I mentioned my shopping late last night while talking to my father and
brother, expecting the usually lecture about being financially responsible and
the usual ‘wait till your birthday’ response.
“Art is costly,” my father nodded, “not much you can do
about that.”
That surprised me because, coming from my father, this is a
kind of permission. He said a similar thing when my car needed fixing, and when
my old computer died. It’s a phrase he reserves for costs he deems as important
enough to go into debt for...
