Walking into Darkness

I'm sitting by the window overlooking the woods at the back of the house.  It's early morning.  The squirrels who live in the big tree, are scampering around, collecting bits and pieces for their nests.  My dog stares resolutely through the patio door, whimpering softly as the squirrels jump and leap and somersault on the deck. 

There's been a softness on the breeze these past few days, even with the big winds that threaten to topple trees and lift garbage cans.  I've been digging in the garden, clearing away the debris of last autumn.  Twigs, dried grasses, molding leaves, dead stems that a few months ago blazed with color; all stacked up in the wheelbarrow waiting to be transported to the garden "burial grounds" down the woodland path to a spot that can not be seen from my window. In time this garden trash will turn into lush fertile soil, but right now, everything is damp and smells of deep earth and dark decay.

I uncover the bed under the crepe myrtles and find the snowdrop bulbs I planted during Covid in the hopes of sweet snowdrifts in the spring.  Their tiny fragile caps shake and dance in the breezes.  I can't help smiling at their joyfulness and the ironic contrast of their cool wintery whiteness under a tree that tosses lacy petals like pink snow on to the driveway in the deep, muggy heat of July.  But first, these brave little soldiers are the sincerest sign that spring is on its way.

It's been a long, long, dark, cold time hasn't it?   Covid goes on and on, teasing us with hope before plunging back into virility and spinning off to threaten the scarred friendships, neighborhoods, communities anew.  Gah! I wish upon the snowdrops that spring brings with it the seeds of change, renewal, restoration.  

I think about this time last year.  I didn't know it then, but I was in the last days of my old life, teetering on the brink of a darkness that would swallow up and spit me out feeling depleted, lost, inert with Nothingness to hold on to. Have I been here before?  I thought I had dealt with the little boogie man on my shoulder who taunted and teased and mocked.  But I am wrong.  I have not been here before.  This is uncharted territory.

A blank, alien landscape of whites and greys.  Nothingness swallowing up days and days. leaving me exhausted and unable to form a sentence to fathom what is happening inside my head or what is crushing me in its ceaseless grasp, squeezing out my life's breathe.  I went to bed one night, intending to sleep, but sleep never came.  Instead my mind exploded in an endless loop of random thoughts that clutched at my heart and shook my body and left me sweating and trashing in the darkness.  Early that morning, before the sun came up, I signed off from work, retreated from life, from the things that gave my days structure and entered into the still and airless caves, where I have stayed for months and months.  In these darkest of days, spring seemed an eternity away.

But now, I sit here, looking out at the world and I know spring is coming.  I know that the darkness will fade.  I know I will recover and push up the snowdrops and walk towards the hot days and the pink snowdrifts of summer.  But right now, I am content to look from the safety of my window and patiently wait this winter out.