Charles Burchfield, Journals, December 28, 1923

 
           I woke up in the middle of the night.  The wind was blowing about my head as tho I were outdoors sleeping.

            At dawn I was up.  It was strange to come away from the lamp lit lavatories where men looked pallid under artificial light, to come away and out into the warm daylight.  Over in the east were scattered bluish clouds that had an elemental look about them as thunderclouds to the east after the first spring thunderstorm has passed, or as the world might have looked after the Flood.

            On way to work.  A great swooping wind out of the southwest.  The tree tops roar against the cold gray sky; the clouds spit down a few wild flakes of snow now and then.  Trees look blackly at the ground and the peaks and corners of the bleak houses are razor-sharp.  I walk along exultantly with my chest out.  All things are possible now.  I felt like throwing a gauntlet into the face of the whole world; let me, like a winter wind sweep all of the debris of the centuries away, I – alone – unaided!

            As I sat in front of my work at the factory trying to collect my thoughts for the days work, I thought more of my morning’s walk and then I thought of how I used to keep a diary, and from there my mind recalled certain events of my adolescent period that I wrote about.  Such as the enthusiastic account I gave of walking in the country aroundSalem.  Then, everything was of equal interest, every stick and stone, every sound and smell.  Now a landscape is either interesting or dull.  I thought with regret that period, when the whole world, the procession of the seasons, filled with wonder, must pass.

            At noonI found Frank Lankes waiting for me.  He had been looking at copper-plate process.  He stayed and had lunch with us.  He told of having done some work at the docks a year ago.  I wish I could remember the exact nature of the work, but some part of a tower at the docks had started to topple over.  They secured it with long cables and then working huge jacks they straightened it and put a new stone foundation under it.  What was fine tho was his remark at the end of it “that was a good job.  It was pretty nice to work at a thing like that.”  If all the workmen in America were like him – America’s future would be secure.  We walk out to Elmwood together – He seemed like a part of the story.  We discussed whether he, being born Mar. 13 came under the influence of Aries.  I thought not.

            To the men’s hotel at night.  A man happily married is apt to lose all insight into the lives that many men must lead.

Charles E. Burchfield, December 28, 1923