Snow

There is a moment which usually happens in January where I feel the winter surrounding me on all sides.  A quiet hunter, it wraps itself around me, in me, through me, as silent as gray clouds, until I realize I'm asleep while awake and it's too late.  This year, it's happening a bit earlier.

As I started typing the first sentence of this post, I looked out the window as the second real snow flurries of the season began to fall.  The first is always just a warning, a teaser we know will melt away within hours.  The second is a bit more real.  It brings a bit more company with it, more flakes.  The ground is a bit more passive and lets it stick.

I approach Christmas with such hope, such expectation each year.  Always, what happens is satisfying in some way or other, regardless of what I hoped would come to pass.  The next days, though, seem to stretch on into another year, bringing along all the regret and misses that have accumulated with the previous one.

What does the snow bring now?  Where does it come from, its perfection and shushing?  If the days grow slowly longer, why is there a sheet in the sky forcing me back into sleep, into obedience and complacence?  Who are its allies?  Why must they agree to this end-run?

Fall elsewhere.  Let me be.