Something could fit into that empty space - The Chaff with Scott Stephenson

Late winter is when a community begins to look at itself in reflective surfaces. Not the dramatic kind of reflection that prompts reinvention. The quieter sort. The snowbanks have slouched. The festive lights have conceded defeat. The sky, scrubbed clean by February wind, stretches out in a blue so unapologetically earnest it feels like an invitation. And in that clear, uncompromising light, certain stretches of pavement adopt an expression that can only be described as anticipatory. Not empty. Not barren. Anticipatory. As though they are waiting for someone to finish a sentence they have been politely holding open since New 
Year’s.

 

It would be irresponsible to claim that a single civic notion has threaded its way through every week of this year so far. That would imply a level of planning bordering on choreography. This has been far more organic. A murmur here. A raised eyebrow there. A suspiciously detailed aside about how snow gathers at the base of things that are not yet technically there. If a pattern has emerged, it is the sort that reveals itself only after one steps back and squints, like those optical illusions that are either a vase or two faces but never both at the same time. We have merely been describing the vase. If readers keep seeing faces, that is on them.

 

There is something about February that encourages structural curiosity. The ground is firm in a way it won’t be in April. Boots land with confidence. Salt crunches underfoot. One cannot help but admire resilience this time of year. What stands up to this climate? What laughs gently at the frigid wind? What maintains posture under the affectionate assault of snow? These are reasonable winter questions. They apply equally to mailboxes, lampposts and entirely hypothetical tributes to beloved cultural figures whose origins may or may not be traceable to this very postal code.

 

Late winter also invites practicality disguised as poetry. One begins to think about foundations without admitting it. About depth. About what must be set firmly enough to endure freeze and thaw cycles without complaint. The metaphor writes itself, frankly. Depth of affection. Frost lines of memory. The structural integrity of admiration that has been tested by decades and found entirely corrosion-resistant. If these metaphors begin to resemble engineering notes, that is an unfortunate side effect of clarity in cold air.

 

No one is measuring anything. If someone happens to have paced out a certain stretch of pavement with unusual deliberation, they were likely counting steps for fitness. If someone else squinted at the skyline and traced an invisible outline with a mittened finger, that was a gesture of idle imagination. If, through entirely coincidental repetition, a particular silhouette has grown increasingly vivid in the communal mind, that is the natural consequence of prolonged exposure to good humour and an area’s fondness for its own history.

 

There is also the small matter of tourism, though we hesitate to bring economics into something so delightfully airy. Visitors already arrive with curiosity. They photograph storefronts. They sip coffee. They ask where things began. It is not unreasonable to imagine that they might appreciate a novel focal point. Not a spectacle. Nothing ostentatious. Just a companionable presence that suggests, “Yes, this is where.” A presence that understands snowbanks. A presence that does not flinch when local birds treat it as collaborative infrastructure.

 

The pigeons, incidentally, have not been consulted. But one suspects they are adaptable. They have weathered far worse than civic enthusiasm. If anything, they may welcome a new vantage point from which to survey late winter traffic. We do not presume to speak for them. We merely observe that avian buy-in has historically been robust when vertical surfaces are introduced.
And so we arrive, once again and entirely by accident, at the edge of that same sunlit patch of possibility. The light hits it just so in February. Crisp. Unforgiving. Honest. It outlines the absence with surprising clarity, as though encouraging the imagination to fill it in. We resist the urge. We are disciplined. We admire the emptiness as emptiness. We comment on its proportions in the abstract. We marvel at how it seems almost custom-designed for something that has not been designed.

 

If, someday, boots were to crunch past and encounter a familiar grin rendered in steadfast material, the reaction would be measured. A nod. A smile. Perhaps a gentle brushing of snow from a shoulder that feels oddly familiar. We would, naturally, express mild astonishment. “How perfectly it fits,” we would murmur, as though the idea had sprung fully formed from the frozen ground without a year’s worth of gentle coaxing.

 

Until then, late winter remains our co-conspirator. The sky stays clear. The pavement waits.