Worthy of Van Gogh

Another bright, sunny afternoon. The south-facing side of the house is flooded with light; the north-facing side, which is where I am, is quite dim — dim enough that I’ve already turned on my little stained glass dragonfly lamp, which is situated about six inches to the left of the laptop computer I use here on the desk.

This morning was agreeably spent cleaning the house. This afternoon, we took a nice walk through the neighborhood — the same route I ran early this morning when it was twenty-nine degrees, but in the opposite direction, this time going down the hill instead of up. Now it’s forty-eight degrees, and I felt so warm while we were out that I had to take off my gloves and unzip my jacket. As the winter wears on, as long as I’m moving, twenty-nine in the morning hardly feels cold.

We bought the lamp almost twenty years ago, when there was still a busy, well-stocked JC Penney store here in town. Now all three floors of the entire building are in an empty, unoccupied shell, with metal gates blocking the entrances to keep the homeless from camping in the recessed doorways. This fate is shared by some of the other buildings downtown. It’s sad to see, but this is the current state of things. It’s impossible to go anywhere without seeing ragged men pushing shopping carts with all of their belongings, or sleeping on the sidewalks, or huddled in doorways, many holding conversations with no one, with passing cars, with invisible counterparts. Human beings, all of them, worthy of Van Gogh and just as needful of recognition, acceptance, and love.

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