In the winter at 5:00 pm, the emptiness is the worst. I feel a lonely draft in the corner of my heart. What I am missing, what is it I want, what makes me so sad?
Is it the gray and steady flatness of the sky and trees and field? Or the way the windows in the houses glow, while wood smoke and stars surround me?
Is it the way I feel dull and exhausted, even with Matt Damon and kettle corn and couch?
Is it the voice in my head, ever yelling and telling me I’m not half the woman I could be if only, just once, I’d get it right, I’d do it right, I’d stop being lazy?
Sometimes the world disappoints us; what it gathers around, what it gives back, what it does to hearts and minds and souls. Oh so far beyond disappointed, in the terrifying way we dismiss, diminish, marginalize, bully, cast out. The way we are poisoned by words and water and false and ugly prophet. The way we are harshly judged, and judge others, and judge ourselves. The way we drift through time, alone. And drift through space, without.
Sometimes the strip of blue sky at the end of a long winter day, caught between orange and steel, just isn’t enough. And as it narrows and lamps turn on, and TV’s too, and cars pull up to eat nachos and watch concussions and cheer for patriotism, I am sad.
Sometimes the world turns away, before it comes back again. In the dying light we see the weight of shadow, and feel the coming of the night.
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