sunpower

It's bright out, now, but *shadowless.  The children are all tucked up for Quiet Time - Lil' Snip asleep, Nice with her three books, and Sugar & Spice with mathbooks and a Bible assignment (to probe Proverbs for health wisdom).  I curl up on the sofa with the laptop and my carbs of choice (Cheez-Its today, and new-to-me Breton crackers), having left a message for a friend to call, vacillating now between my blog or Seinfeld re-runs.

[Blogging won, thanks to guilt, and yesterday's glut of Seinfeld.]

It's not quite overcast, and yet, not sunny either.  Something about the weather keeps me inside myself.  Even a phone call is hard to make.

Earlier, the sun shone - brightly, as if it meant to stay; as if spring were here now, and not weeks away - and I found myself jolted out of my inertia, and cleaning windows, of all things.  The fresh air invigorated, the glass sparkled, all was right with my world.

Now the sun is in, you can hardly tell a difference in those windows.

Will it shine again before they're spotted and dusty, to show off my work?

Thoughts come slow today.  Guilt is not a good muse.  And all those poems I read to my daughters (the Sonnets to the Portuguese is what we're on) shame my commonplace, contemporary, inadequate writing.

A week ago, someone stumbled on my blog, searching for Janet Gehman, who (whom?) I mentioned in a post about chocolate.  She was my English teacher, taught me about Shakespeare and possibilities; her crooked smile will always be one of my favorites.  I wonder where she is now, and who was looking for her, and if she knows how much she gave me.  I'd like to thank her, please her somehow, to give back.  I'd like to see that smile again.  She always seemed to have some secret delight for her fuel.

It's chilly here.  The pellet stove is burning but it has some catch-up to do, since the sun went in.  My Cheez-Its are gone and my friend hasn't called.

Maybe it's time for some Seinfeld.


*At a meeting for artists last month, David Nolt, a local painter, talked about a painting he did for a group of children.  The elements were all in place, but lacked depth.  He told the children to watch, he was going to make the sun come out.  I pictured, immediately, highlights, dabs of white and yellow, the way a landscape brightens when the bank of clouds rolls away.  Instead he said, "and then I painted shadows."

The shadows have stuck with me.  They're how you know the sun is shining.