Kenny
Interlude:
Before I get started, I wanted to share some information about the featured image for it exemplifies exactly how I am feeling today. This image is part of the public domain and courtesy Wikimedia Commons.
Jean-François Millet
Le Printemps [Spring]
This painting was part of a cycle of the seasons that Millet worked on during the final years of his life. It was commissioned by Frédéric Hartmann, a patron of Théodore Rousseau, in March 1868. Millet worked on it intermittently until his death, completing Spring in May 1873, Summer and Autumn in 1874, but leaving Winter unfinished. Spring is firstly a landscape painting, a genre that Millet embraced more after 1865. He reduces the presence of man to the minute figure of a peasant in the centre under the trees, presenting an expression of a meeting, a dialogue between man and nature that is both lyrical and poetic. Nature is accurately observed, with the small flowers scattered along the roadside. Here the natural world is lived in and cared for. An orchard has been planted, a road has been laid, a fence built (protection against the untamed natural world glimpsed in the background). Everything here is symbolic: the storm clouds chasing across the sky, the dark lilac-brown earth, the bare, chopped branches of the trees suggest the passing of winter, whilst the blossom and bright raw green of the forest are signs of spring’s renewal.
I don’t think I will ever overcome the immense joy gained after bathing in a perfect pre-spring day. The second you step outside it is as if you have stepped into a stand-up shower with jets hitting you from every angle. Instead of water, the jets stream the perfect amounts of sunshine, bird song, hints of lime green from the trees and plants, sweet aromas of spring bulbs in bloom and an immense feeling of incredible joy and happiness. What a beautiful feeling!
Waltzing down avenues of my local Nordstrom’s with a sudden compulsion to buy some fresh summer clothes, I was humming some songs I had heard before exiting my car. “Sweet Cherry Wine” by Tommy James and the Shondells. I love how that song starts with the organ and bells and then these glorious lyrics:
Come on everyone we gotta get together now
Oh yeah, love’s the only thing that matters anyhow
And the beauty of life can only survive
If we love one another
I always imagined the 60’s to be a happy, loving time and deep down I would love to transfer some of those seasons of love to the present time. Perhaps I am a bit naïve in this regard. The only real thing I have to go on is what I have seen in movies and old television footage. While the flower children basked in their seasons of the sun, the 60’s were not without their problems. But I guess that’s the very essence of any given moment in time.
Take today for example. For an entire day, I allowed the ever lingering thoughts of all that is wrong with the world to drift away and focused instead on all the good that surrounded me. The music, the sights, sounds and aromas of a shopping mall, kindness a plenty, smiles, laughter, goodness and joy. Oh, and a shoe salesman wearing a pair of floral pants reminiscent of something Austin Powers might have pulled out of his closet. Come to find out the brand was Mr. Turk and though these are not the pants this gentleman was wearing, they weren’t far off. “Yeah baby!”– said in my best Austin Powers accent. If I could afford them, I would love a pair myself.
Back in the car, Tommy James continued to serenade me. “Crystal Blue Persuasion” this time. Just one more stop and then home – The Container Store.
That is where I met Kenny. Like most of the fine folks at The Container Store, Kenny loves his job and the people who shop in his store. We talked about the day, the sun, the music, my t-shirt (a shirt from the botanic gardens featuring the corpse flower – he thought The Corpse Flower was the name of a band) and of course the containers I was purchasing. I needed two tubs to mix and store my indoor potting mix and ended up with a couple impulse buys (fine mist spray bottle for my seedlings and a basket for the shed) thrown in as well. Before I left I shook Kenny’s hand and thanked him for his exceptional attitude and the added joy he brought my day.
This day has been incredibly intoxicating and a grand reminder that tremendous happiness can may be lurking just around the corner — a corner with perhaps a music store that has outdoor speakers and those speakers playing out some Tommy James and just outside the store hundreds of happy souls ready with a smile or a conversation.