If You Let It

It's the end of the year, if you haven't noticed. I moved into my writing room to cool my face down. For the past hour or two I sat and read in front of the fireplace, and my left cheek blazes with a shaming blush of sluggishness. I haven't exactly been slothful because I hauled in the firewood, folded some laundry, made a salad, and put away all the holiday decor. I was a verb this morning. There's tension in my neck and shoulders, a tightness in my foot. There's that light orb of grief, an ornament that rests in my chest, ready to break during any season.  My head is an unkept office space. My whole body has much to say, outside of calendrics. I possess a body chemistry that rejects time. Watches stop when on my wrist. 

I do like this time of year in spite of its expectations, sales, announcements, exclamations, proclamations, and resolutions. I feel the contrasts build in me like a cloud cover. It's a quiet drear among the glitter: to be more, do more, wrap everything up and move ahead, to get beyond, to rise above, to have it all figured out and together. Have you seen the aisles of empty plastic containers, ready to be filled with what we want out of sight? Once you've hidden Who-You-Once-Were, you can set your table with the gleaming flatware of I-Know-What-I'm-Doing-Now. 

I know what I'm doing now, which is writing this while red cheeked and feeling the collywobbles caused by a robust handful of chocolate almonds. I haven't made a list, or drawn up a plan for anything else I wish to share. I have nothing for you. Were you expecting anything? I just have now. The dog across the road barks into darkness and fog, there's one light on in the neighbors house, and if you let it, the sound of rain as it hits the porch roof could be mistaken for a clock.