On Broadway the snow had just started; I bought salt at the hardware store on the way to the house, where Stephen and I checked up on the construction. (I’ll be returning later to shovel, if the forecast is even close to accurate.)
The house is still a mess, but the crew has made a lot of progress; they’re even starting to paint the walls, in this room a slate green, which I understand (due to its somber quality) is not for everyone but which I find very soothing.
Even on a snowy day like today, the light spills through the windows, creating an aura that you might call ‘celestial’ if you’re given to those kind of tendencies, which I undoubtedly am. I don’t believe in heaven (or hell), but I like to find glimpses of it (even if such glimpses are cliches, such as diffuse, streaming light or maybe even rainbows or sunsets or other kinds of natural beauty that make us feel pleasantly insignificant but somehow ‘connected’ to something bigger than ourselves at the same time).
Downstairs the Christmas cactus was blooming on cue, despite the thick dust in which it’s been covered for much of the past month. (I try to keep it clean, but there are limits to what you can do in a construction site.) I feel pretty confident that all of the plants are going to make it through the renovation without too much damage; I’ve promised them that they’ll be much happier when it’s done, because they’ll be moving upstairs into rooms where they get more light, which I suppose is another definition of ‘heaven on earth.’
Outside, the red and green details of the adjacent ‘apartment palaces’ on Broadway seemed perfectly designed for a snowy Christmas weekend.
At street level, umbrellas went up and people went on with their days, undeterred by the passing time and stormy weather it sometimes brings.
