On these freezing cold days we knew were due to arrive I’m going just very slightly mad and no, I won’t hold it against you that you were grinning whilst weighing the word ‘slightly’, as I have too much self-awareness to instead blame for instance the fumes of the fires meant to keep us warm, or the new favorite home-brew herbal tea for that matter, a delightful mix of everything that didn’t fit this year’s storage jars and was ingeniously labelled ‘surplus’, which might explain why it’s my best infusion so far, even if I do say so myself.
“You don’t sound depressed”, a friend carefully inquired this morning on the phone, without suppressing her surprise nor her support because that’s just the kind of friend she is, in and from another life yet still connected, like knows like. And she’s right. This current mania, for lack of a better word I’ll stick with what I know, bears nor dispels any darkness and none of the usual seasonal malefactors seem present, yet it’s a completely familiar feeling of being cramped and growing weak in the profuse presence of beauty while instantaneously fearing lack of room to store it in longterm, which is needed because my heart is still filled with the remnants of a summer that braided its demands with its delights, but my head tips the entirety over by creating a new and untold universe to gladly get lost in again, seeking comfort in words, music, anything still recognizable from before, but different, bent out of shape.
These retracting marvels that Winter brings, this circumstantial cessation, deserve every bit as much our attention and admiration, but instead we move to bring the outside in, because hibernation awaits.
Our renewed surroundings appear altered, because frost arrived, actively announced yet equally unnoticed, as if innerly we were still working towards that reasonable reality only to discover it’s already here and significantly influencing our daily routines, yet it failed to be registered as such.
Me joining Young Mec for his early morning runs down our hill on autopilot has become flashlight-lit with many dangers lurking in the dark, or at least nearby beings for him to bark at. Those detested hunters that followed suit only days after obviously only emerged because of my inability to keep those presences hidden, me and my spotlight.
Thoughts of the same magnitude brought the still ongoing migration of common cranes, a daily impressive sight and sound not easily ignored, inside the cat cave through my craftwork transforming our china pantry, a job I can’t take any real credit for as it was also me who hang the bird feeders that turned those poor hungry souls into easy dinner grabs for roommate Safran.
“Lead me away, come inside, see my mind in kaleidoscope”, blasting through my speakers, much louder than usual, poor Ivory, and it’s not even necessarily a message for him or anyone near enough, but an invitation to dig deeper myself. In my attempt to find the soundtrack that accompanies this vague incertitude, I tripped over this line in a song of which I would prefer to say it was the first record I ever bought, but more likely stole from my brother as he’s a few years older and telling it that way would fit the timeframe better as well as judge my own character more accurately, being a thief at heart, of heart, with a undeniable predilection for bombastic drama.
By now Ivory must be an expert in dealing with the reflecting surfaces and interchangeable optics of my mind, resulting in ever-changing views constantly being presented, yet he still manages to surprise me. Completely ignoring his usual scragginess when it comes to my favorite seasonal activity of decorating our cottage for Christmas, he responded to my current waverings and motivated scarceness with an opposing “Maybe just a small tree? To bring the outside in ?”
