Air It Out

A springy little ditty for heavy times

In yesterday’s NY Times Morning Update, Melissa Kirsch shared that during times of stress and uncertainty like we’re living through now, she makes a “good” list each day. Not Best, but Good. “In a world of bests, good is a relief,” she writes, because “Best Lists,” of which there are so many, suggest comparison, judgment. I like this idea. Conversations lately with friends and family tend to focus on the threats and ills in our world, so why not nudge ourselves to ponder, if just for a moment, the good or happy stuff? I’m not talking about being grateful, though that’s a side effect, but when bombs fall and the Earth warms and guns are hoisted and inflation rises (oops, a BAD list), noting good and simple things, remembering their pleasing effect, can bring a prolonged emotional sigh, a release, maybe even lower blood pressure. Writing it down is nice, but really the noticing itself, the mental list, is key. And once you start noticing, paying attention, it sort of builds on itself. And that can only be good, right?

Here’s a start, my brief Good List for the day:

—tulips

—little girls around the corner selling lemonade

—bluebirds

—queso dip

—flowering dogwood against a cobalt sky

—Stevie Wonder

—our neighborhood Italian joint’s paper fan decor

Okay, that was a long intro to this week’s (shorter than usual) post called “Air It Out.” Not a good “list,” it does concern a few simple joys of spring. This winter has stretched out long and frigid, literally in many places, figuratively all over. A winter of discontent puts it mildly, so I’m turning my thoughts to spring, and hoping her promise brings if not precisely good, then better, times ahead.

Thanks for reading, always.

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Does anyone own an attic fan anymore? There was one in my girlhood home, a big clanking contraption whose business end was sheet-rocked over years ago. In better days, on the odd spring Saturday morning, my father liked to crank it up and let ‘er rip. To clarify—this was no portable window mount, not a fan meant to cool the attic itself but rather a six by six leviathan that lay prone (see diagram) on the attic floor, ready to suck the heat and dust up and out of the rooms below. It’s still around, this sort of fan, though it goes by a different name—the Whole House Fan, billed as a green homeowner option.

Ours was just the Attic Fan. When it fired up with its Blitzkrieg racket, my mother would flash me a wry smile. My father’s airing-out ritual, part of a general spring cleaning, was a tradition she didn’t see much sense in. Having grown up in Florida pre-air conditioning, she had her fill of oscillated air and dust cyclones long before she met Dad. But she went along. I can see her now, hair tucked beneath a scarf as she marched around opening windows in cotton blouse and slacks and size 6AAA Keds (an outfit never-to-be worn outside the home). My father did the heavy work, which included scrubbing sills and reaching through cobwebs to right screens that had bent or slipped from their hinges during the long shut-in season.

The window screen was essential hardware in our house, a barrier both literal and figurative between the out of doors and the more orderly—and in my father’s mind, superior—indoor sanctuary. Much angst arose if on Attic Fan Day a screen was found to be broken beyond repair. Think of the pests that might enter! Bringing the outdoors in, a common selling point today for French doors and the like, was an alien concept for my parents. Their goal—I would venture a common one for their generation—was to celebrate all the many ways humankind had managed to conquer the natural world. Besides, outside the home lay all manner of menace, or the gritty memory of it—a nation ravaged by the Depression, bled by wars abroad, tainted by political movements they failed to understand.

Inside their home, the dream home my parents managed to build in their forties, all was fresh and safe. We had no front porch, nor back for that matter. No deck, certainly no outdoor kitchen, not even a grill, unless you count the rusted-out Weber on wheels my father rolled out of the garage once a year under pressure from my brothers to barbecue hamburgers. Don’t get me wrong, we had land, plenty for a property within Atlanta’s city limits—big shady hardwoods, tall pines, azaleas and dogwoods, even a gurgling creek. My father maintained it all himself. Yard work was his hobby, his exercise, his miniature John Deere tractor his preferred vehicle. It was all well and good to enjoy the outdoors, he seemed to imply, but when it was time to eat, or relax, or socialize, indoors was the thing. After all, we wouldn’t want a sunburn or a fly in our soup.

I digress. Back to Attic Fan Day. Once the window screens were secured, Dad moved on to other projects—weed whacking, mowing the lawn, cleaning gutters. Meanwhile, Mom and I floated about the breezy house, shouting above the din, pockets of air buoying us up the stairs and down the hall. The fan brought the house to life. Curtains fluttered, sheets rippled as we made beds, somewhere a wind chime tinkled. I remember feeling I could breathe more deeply, my lungs expanding, filling with the promise of the fresh season ahead.

When in the dim of dusk my father marched inside and threw the off-switch, the curtains settled, the chime fell silent, and a sort of melancholy set in. I would stand in the hall and gaze up as the big blades creaked to a halt. As the blinds that hid the blades snapped shut, my heart fell, the hallway around me gone still and empty. Why? Why couldn’t we have this happy commotion always, or at least weekends, this rush of air from somewhere beyond, somewhere exotic and pulsing with energy?

I can’t say, really, but my guess is it had to do with pride. My father, after years of financial struggle, now owned a spacious home with CENTRAL AIR. It was all well and good to put this gargantuan fan to practical use, but as our Georgia temperatures rose (which they did, quickly), why bother? We had acquired a much better invention to keep us comfortable, and dust and sweat-free at that.

Welcome Spring. No attic fan in our house these days, but when I get around to airing things out and scrubbing away winter’s mold and mildew, if I catch a breeze, I’ll think of that old dinosaur’s rumble and thud, and smile.

Flowery things on my good list

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