On the second to last day of this year, I stand at the clothesline and pin damp sheets and pillowcases still smelling of lavender. They snap and twist in the cold wind. I’m surrounded by all the dried and dead of the garden.
Inside, I watch the bone broth simmer through the glass lid. The bubbles wiggle the chicken feet floating on the surface of the golden liquid.
And I’m sick and worn down to just the warp in spots. My eyes burn and my ears are blocked and ringing still with the leaving, that final gift that pricks and throbs like so many tiny shards of glass embedded just under the skin.
I drape the dried sheet over the mattress and make crisp hospital corners at the foot of the bed, and the smell of petrichor rises from the linens, warding against evil in the new year to come.
While the preacher spoke of a world beyond the veil, one half of a mated pair caught his neck in a loop of nylon cord that he or his mate had worked into their nest. He parted the louvers covering the exhaust vent and launched himself through to the outside.
Clusters of red and white brittlegills dotted the path through the back woods. Can’t know for sure which species, there are over 750 in the genus. But if there is any poetry in happenstance, then surely my path was strewn with Russula sanguinaria, bloody brittlegill, the deep, rich red of a life poured out at your feet.
We were alone for the afternoon, and so we walked around the lake, slowly, savoring the warmth of that Indian summer day. She patiently waited for me each time I stopped to take another, and another, and another. We watched flying creatures of all kinds enjoy a large patch of asters (I’d never before seen a Buckeye butterfly). Just as I was zooming in on the center of her web, a spotted orbweaver zipped past my lens and encased a newly-caught fly in a death cocoon, and I felt pity and awe and guilt in equal measure.
At work or church I would say that the view was breathtaking, that the climb was invigorating, that watching the sun rise over blue mountains was moving, and I would mean every word. But what I would whisper to you in the quiet is this:
I step away from this space for long periods of time for many reasons. Lately I’ve wanted to be more creative in the physical realm versus digital. Over the past few months I have made a tangible shift in habits and possessions at home, unloading the unnecessary to make room for the analog.
Surgery would never be my first choice to treat any dysfunction. But sometimes our bodies need raw, physical intervention to function properly, and are opened, and our insides are rearranged by skilled doctors with the best of intentions. 
We take the Metro to the National Mall to watch the 
So many below freezing days, and then this storm of heavy and wet snowflakes that stung our cheeks as we walked. The pond, transformed by a layer of ice and snow, was a white meadow ringed by bare trunks. I snapped a few photos and then the wind told us it was time to turn back. Just as we started on our way home, I looked down and noticed: she’d worn her purple sneakers instead of her boots. Silly girl.
When I am an old woman, I will be a milkweed seed pod drying in the sun, wrinkled and spotted.
Thirty minutes to spare. The grounds are dotted with little houses, each one filled with whispering old objects. 
