(Above: "4 a.m. Madison Township style!"
My favorite, favorite painting of all time hangs inconspicuously in a hallway in the Middletown Public Library. If you are curious to see it, take a left just past the circulation desk and keep looking to the left. It is a watercolor by Robert Brandenburg entitled simply "4 a.m." and in my opinion it is pretty nearly perfect.
Mind you, I have been fortunate to have seen quite a lot of notable works of art. I seek out Vermeer and other Dutch Masters in every museum I visit ( because I like them!). I have seen collections by John Singer Sargent (wonderful!), Maxfield Parrish (stunning!) and Rembrandt (almost indescribable - almost magical). I have traveled through some small part of the Vatican Museum, and the Louvre. I've stood with the crowds surrounding the Mona Lisa (or La Jaconde, as she is more formally called), and gaped with thousands of others at the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.
But for sheer evocativeness....the ability to almost grab me by the scruff of the neck, yank me practically out of my shoes, and transport me back to my childhood, nothing does it like "4 a.m." In fact, I make it a point to stand in front of it every time I visit the library, like a junkie getting my fix. I even attempted to learn if copies were available - no luck (so far), so despite my attempts to avoid the more depressing parts of my once-thriving hometown whenever possible, "4 a.m." will still draw me like a magnet to that shadowy passage behind the circulation desk of the library.
It's a simple picture, really - a scene of snowcovered backyards in some older neighborhood, much like Midway Street where I spent the first 12 years of my life (no, I haven't always been a country girl). It is dark, but not quite dark - there is that luminousity that one can only appreciate on a winter night when streetlights illuminate deep snow, with more coming down. The type of night in which, if you're out and about, your realize once your eyes adjust it isn't dark at all - just a deep grey. I'm not sure how the artist captured this quality of light - but I love it. There is an old vehicle under a tree, some backyard fences, a hint of danger: a cat peeks over the fence at a rabbit playing in the snow: the night is not totally safe after all! - but the feature which draws the eye is a single strand of Christmas lights strung over a gate and left to shine through the night.
Wow. Suddenly, standing in front of the painting on a hot summer afternoon, wearing a tank top, shorts and sandals, I am transported: I am a grade-school kid at St. Johns, peeking out the bathroom window (why else would I be up at 4 a.m., after all?) over the backyards;I know it is cold outside, and silent. I know if I stand in the backyard I will be able to hear the hissing of the snowflakes as they patter down to join their brethern, but I am not going out just now. I am snug in my red flannel 'jammies with the feet in 'em, secure in the delicious knowledge that school will be cancelled, MAYBE for more than one day! Mom, Dad and my aunt Cath are all sound asleep, and I am subconsciously secure in their nearness. Christmas is coming, another proximity that makes me happy. The tree isn't up yet - it's still in a bucket of ice water by the garage - but the wreath is on the door and the Nativity scene is set up on the server in the dining room (it will not surprise anyone to learn that I loved playing with the animals). If there is a better assembly of feelings for a kid to experience all at once, I can't think of it. And so I go back, time and again, to stand in front of "my" painting and revisit my childhood.
Inevitably I have to leave the library and throw myself back into the now, but at this time of year the wall of years between "now" and "then" seems to crumble and crack and wobble and just grow a little thinner. The beloved Nativity scene, its animals somewhat the worse for wear, will be set up in the dining room again. My windows now look out over woods and pastures instead of backyards and alleys, but I sometimes see MY cats stalking their prey, and at other privileged times may spy a surprised window-peeping doe who stares back at me before bounding into the cover of the trees, caught in the act of raiding my bird feeders for corn(it's ok, I don't really mind). When the snow is thick on the pasture it's the reflection of the moon, rather than streetlights, that illuminates the ponies moseying on their way to the water trough for a late-night drink of heater-thawed water. Stars hang low, shining through the branches of the trees, and it's the hooting of a hunting owl instead of the distant swish of cars on snowy streets that I'd hear if I stood quietly in the backyard.
The Christmas lights are up out front, a wreath is ready for the door, and soon we will seek out a little cedar tree for the table in the living room; this year we are foregoing a big tree in an attempt to avoid having to remove a collection of decorations from our 6 month old labrador retriever puppy's innards: better safe than stuck in surgery! Our front yard lights are traditionally all white, but in the back, spiraling up into a scrub tree above the horse trough, is a strand of colored lights hanging suspended in the darkness, a swirl of light and life and hope, color and celebration - and yes, a nod to "4 a.m." - in the midwinter night.
I hope it snows.
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