ValueSpeak
A Weekly Column
By Joseph Walker

OPENING A WINDOW TO SPRING

Spring sort of comes and goes where I live. One minute it’s balmy and warm and you’re driving around with your windows down and the breeze blowing in your face, and the next minute it’s cold and blustery and you’re wondering where you put the snow shovel.

Today is one of those days when spring is both coming . . . and going. It’s bright and sunny out – but not really. Rather than the clear blue sky one normally associates with a spring day, a high, thin layer of clouds have given this spring day a murky pallor. The gentle breeze that is blowing is cool – almost too briskly to be considered “gentle,” and almost too cool to be completely comfortable. The blossom-less branches of the apple tree outside my window bounce and bend almost menacingly – especially when the breeze blows into a full gust of wind.

It is spring, and yet it isn’t.

Springy, that is.

The weather prognosticators on the radio insist that a storm is on its way. By the afternoon we will have rain, they say, and maybe a little snow. And it will be cold. Usually such a prediction means we will actually be sweltering in sun-bathed ecstasy this afternoon, but just in case they’re right this time I have the window by my desk fully opened to let in whatever remains of this spring day – cold and blustery and murky though it may be.

Of course, there’s a downside to that. It’s just a little too cool to be jacket-less, and those occasional gusts of wind have a way of blowing around the papers on my desk. So I’m sitting here wearing a jacket, with notes and papers strewn all over the room, my window wide open to the advancing storm.

It’s a little incongruent, I know. It would make more sense to just close the window, take off the jacket and put the papers back on the desk where they belong. But it’s spring, and after a long, cold, snow-filled winter I can’t bring myself to shut it out – not until I absolutely have to.

Of course, this isn’t the first time in my life that I’ve made a choice that flew in the face of conventional wisdom. Come to think of it, my history seems to be filled with more nonsense than common sense. I quit a relatively well-paying job two weeks before my wedding day over a dispute with an abusive employer. Even so, Anita and I decided to begin having children immediately after we were married rather than to wait until we were settled in as a couple and could afford it. We continued having children – five of them, God bless ‘em! – even though we couldn’t afford to buy a home in which to raise them. When we finally DID buy a home after 17 years of marriage and child-bearing, it was probably more than we could afford.

And don’t even get me started talking about the extensive remodeling we have just completed – right smack dab through the middle of that long, cold, snow-filled winter I was talking about. What were we thinking when we got started with that?

So it isn’t too surprising that today I find myself in the midst of another seemingly incongruent change in my life. I won’t bore you with the details – it’s just work stuff, having to do with leaving one steady, secure job with people I’ve grown to love, and heading off into something a little less secure at a time in my life when I should be worrying about accruing as much pension as I possibly can because . . . well, I’m not getting any younger, you know?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m pleased with the new opportunity. But I can’t help but wonder if I know what the heck I’m doing. Then I look back on those other unconventional, nonsensical choices, and I realize that things have a way of working out. Which is not to say that things have always turned out perfectly when I’ve gone against the grain, because they haven’t. But even bad choices have a way of shaping you and turning you into the person you eventually become.

So I’m putting on a jacket and throwing open another window in my life, fully aware that there’s a storm called “old age” on its way. The way I see it, life is too short not to enjoy the spring while it’s here, whether it’s coming or going.

Cold and blustery and murky though it may be.

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— © Joseph Walker

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E-mail Joseph at: valuespeak@msn.com

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