Light Leaving

Goodbye to sunshine. Goodbye summer. These days the light goes earlier and earlier and I find myself slowing down, curling in.

I struggle with sorrow every autumn. The final days of Indian Summer are so much more poignant than midwinter--because now midwinter is all before me. The solstice still approaches. Next spring is so far away: another calendar year, hardly even imaginable.
Despite the cold, the dark--I love the seasons. I even love winter, that it forces me to mourn, forces me to confront some of the darkness inside myself, darkness I was able to ignore while the days were hot and bright. When circumstances change, when my life is not easy, so often the veil is suddenly stripped and I find myself again - - weak, selfish, angry, afraid.
Light is leaving this November. There is mist outside today and stillness. The tops of the trees are blurred. I hear crows. On my front porch the squirrels are eating our Halloween pumpkins. I read somewhere that wild animals know when a winter will be particularly long, hard, cold. They feast accordingly.