Near-Solstice Storm
5:30 a.m. Pre-coffee brain functions on ritual. Bathroom. Feed cats. Fire woodstove. Finally fix coffee. Silently ask “What’s next?” Impulse is called up by a tick of rain against the house. Puffy jacket, knit cap. Coffee in hand, I slip out the back door into stormy darkness vaguely illuminated by overflow lighting spilling from this small city.
Rain on the awning intensifies, hurled by a cold wind that bends silhouette boughs now mostly leafless. Fingers of woodstove flame beckon through the back window. Not yet.
Wind shatters raindrops into mist that swirls around my legs. The cold wash of storm across my face sends me back to a teenage night in the mountains, curled in a tube tent watching the blizzard blow flakes horizontally across my snow trench. This morning I’m grateful for the refuge of a warm house and well-fueled woodstove that wait for my impetuousness to pass.
In the artificial twilight, slushy flakes stream downward like tiny gravity-driven druids. Aloud I say, “Go ahead. Become fully-formed. You’ll be beautiful.” The long night responds with one last surge, pinning itself against my chest, squeezing out any pretense of control. Another half-formed snowstorm, another slushy dawn, another solstice, earthly cycles over which I have no agency.
I concede. Find my way back inside. Switch on artificial lights. The cats stare inscrutably from near the woodstove, perhaps quietly perplexed and wondering what in the hell I was thinking. I can be taught. Pulling up to the fire, I stare flame-struck and wondering. How can I best expand into this shrinking near-winter daylight cupped in the large hands of darkness? What can fully-formed possibly mean?
Fully-formed or not, I’ll be tabling my books at the Authors & Artists Fair on December 10, 2022, held at the Lane Events Center from 10am to 5pm. Join a host of area authors and buy your winter books in support of the Lane Library League. Maybe buy me a sandwich. Or tend my table while I use the restroom. In whatever form your support appears, I’d love to visit with you!