Illness is a kind of winter...

Illness is a kind of winter. It strips the green, leaving only the bare, peeling branches of your life; but it opens the sky. The view widens. It is a new season, only that. You know it will get colder. You know ice is coming. You retreat indoors; inside.

Reading MFK Fisher, I see that I know nothing, really, of pain; and less of those who live with -- who love -- the person in pain.

I am in a between place. I feel change coming -- which, I suppose, is appropriate to the season. I sit on the deck, alone, late in the night, smoking in the snow.

I shall accept T.'s offer of a tree, cut from his property in advance of the power company saws. We will put it on the deck, and decorate it with icicle lights and the Buddhist prayer flags K. gave me for my birthday. I will welcome this solstice and whatever darkness and light it brings.

I don't know who I am. I am no-one. I am a dark vessel, waiting.