This time of year

We plant bulbs

This time of year

Oh this time of year, late autumn in the north, everything is dark and dying.

We wake up and it’s dark.

We go home and it’s dark.

Layers follow layers.

I find myself talking a lot about wool.

I find solace in blocks of wood, sources of heat and light.

At this time of year?

The future seems grim.

In fact it is. 

Everything is dying.

Nothing will grow.

The immediate future in a very natural sense is grim.

This is the time of year that I’ve been to most funerals.

This is the time of year when I want to give up and pack it in.

This is the time of year that things seem hopeless.

And?

This is the time of year that we’ve put bulbs in the ground. Garlic, tulips. All kinds of bulbs.

Planting bulbs is an act of hope.

Planting bulbs is a statement of defiance of the chaos of winter

Spring will come.

That doesn’t have the same Stark sense of foreboding. 

In just over forty days, things will turn.

In just over forty days, things will get a little more bright.

In just over forty days, the finality of Aut…