Many years ago I found a screen door to put on the outside of my garage man door. It needed a little tightening here and loosening there in order for it to ride flush and swing easy. I’ve made two modifications to the screen over the years. In order to keep the bottom screen protected from the cats who love to hang out in the back yard with me and also protect it from David I wanted to reinforce it. The claws of our pets would have shredded the old screen in a hot minute.
This presented a moment of dot connecting in my life that happens over and over again. At a garage sale a decade before I had bought a small roll of heavy duty, what my dad would have called, hardware cloth. Not octagonal or circular chicken wire, but small squares.
When I dug it out of the back of the garage and got the big tin snips, it ended up being just the right size to cover the bottom third of the door. I found wood screws to attach it with. The kinds with big heads and some matching washers that have been in coffee cans on my workbench for over fifty years. Same for the nine screws that fit into the hinges. Done. Reinforced. Garage storage in the dusty corners and under the work bench for the win.
The second modification was made before I ever hung the door. I planned to hang the door on the outside of the entrance to the man door. It would come off the door frame at the end of fall because there’s no way the bottom would be able to pass over the rising snow and the elements of winter would destroy the old relic way faster than the summer sun could break it down.
Anyway, I bought a new can of blue spray paint from Ben Franklin (what we used to call the dime store back in Illinois when I was a kid) and painted the screen door with it to match the color of the metal roof on our house. I wanted to look at that door every morning until the next season and remember what it felt like to enjoy blue skies instead of grey ones.
Along with new flowers from Flower and Seed each spring and a last minute trimming of the raspberry canes and currant bushes, the real signal of new birth in my little square of Ely comes at my own discretion and declaration.
When I’ve had enough of chopping ice and moving snow into the patches of sunlight and shoveling melt water, I will go into the garage and bring out the blue screen door. I’ll grab the zip lock bag from the old medicine cabinet hanging on the wall and take out the nine hinge screws. I’ll hang the door after I’ve made sure there’s enough clearance over the resolute, resilient ice. Then it is spring. Whether it freezes and thaws again or not. I’ll have drawn the line in the snow.
I like to get the Adirondack lawn chairs out and sit in the fleeting patch of sunlight for the first time and snap a picture of the screen door hung for the “first day of spring” and text it to my kids and tell them that winter is over.
The door also reminds me of Bilbo’s hobbit door and if I had more time and resources I’d cut a circular entrance to the garage and build myself a big green circle door and matching screen. Because of my love for nostalgia I think of past springs and times enjoyed in the back yard which I’ve come to fondly remember every bit as much as days spent fishing on the shores of favorite lakes.
It has been a while since we’ve dipped down to the 30 below zero level with the mercury and when we do at the end of this week, I’m going to admit that I’ll be thinking about my screen door.
I like planting seeds, plants and I like collecting bargains at garage sales that I’ll need for something, sometime. I don’t necessarily enjoy the waiting, but I do enjoy those moments when the seeds breach the soil, when the plants mature and blossom, when the fruit appears and ripens, when the purpose for the remnant of hardware cloth or the coffee can of small screws rises to the occasion.
This winter I’m already looking forward to re-hanging the first day of spring.
