In one weekend we have crossed an invisible threshold into a winter. The clocks have changed and somehow the dark seems even darker. The temperatures have fallen and somehow the cold feels even colder. The nights are long and already feel longer. It feels as though we have fallen into an unending night.
Halloween passed without the usual magic of small and excited ghosts, princesses and super heroes crowding the front door with opened pillow cases. It passed like a whisper with only a few rotting pumpkins as sentinels to have watched it. The candles snuffed, not to be relit.
We have crossed this threshold and in the crossing it feels as though something we cannot quite grasp has been left behind. There is a loss in the crossing and we are unsure that there has been anything gained. Like a child having dropped unnoticed a favourite teddy bear on the street, we continue on and the only thing growing is the distance.
I busy myself in the routine of work and the mundane chores of cooking and cleaning. I bake my bread in the hopes that the miracle of flour, salt, water, time and heat will instill in me the curiosity and wonder that it once held. The bread is improving as I become more proficient but this does not translate to satisfaction and I am at a loss to understand why.
Perhaps the feeling of loss is nostalgia for the days before covid. The days when children could run around a dark and spooky neighbourhood demanding candies from willing adults. Or perhaps it is just that I am older by another year and feel the cold just a little more sharply.
Or it is knowing that this winter will be long and knowing this has scooped me out. And tonight it is only a cold wind to fill the space. That, and fresh bread.
