Seven A.M.

Last night, a little after 7pm, I walked past a re-shelving table in the library where a small book on Hopper had been left. With my bag on one shoulder, and seven books in my arms, I kept walking, only to get to the stairs, turn around and go back for the book. A couple weeks ago, I had gone to the Whitney precisely in order to see the Hopper show, but got distracted by other experiences there and this was a reminder of the surprise I experienced in seeing his works.

This morning, after a long night, I got up at 7am to the sun pouring into my room and was, surprised at the mental flash of seeing Hopper's Seven A.M.

I had remarked to my friend how much it reminded me of the many years when I used to go to Northwestern Connecticut, almost the Berkshires, where the small towns were quiet except for the train that passed through on schedule. The few shop windows offered things it seemed unlikely that anyone would buy; there was usually a coffee shop for passengers dropped off too early...or too late. I spent many summers walking around the state parks with the family dog. I swam in lakes. I picked strawberries, rasberries for jam, blueberries for pie, lettuces for salads and basil for pesto from the garden, only a few steps across the soft grass from the back door where a pile of papers waited for my friend's father to read, occasionally diminished not by his reading but rather a family member's pulling some from the bottom to recycle. The mornings were rounds of toast and tea at the kitchen table as the day got planned. Even the bustle of the waking family and the petty arguments between brothers are gentle murmurings in my memory. The kitchen door that led to the garage would slam as boys wandered in and out, but it is muffled now by years of experiences that lead me further from those days whose intimacy would inevitably end.

Hopper depicts a nostalgia they say. I suppose, I agree. As one day, I will remember waking this morning not at 5am as the alarm had suggested to me I ought, but at 7am when my mind looked out onto the little life that I live now, one full of daily irritations but also wondrous moments of enlightenment, which too will pass to be layered into the shadows, onto the hours of mornings to come.