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.
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. 
Know, first, who you are; and then adorn yourself accordingly. – Epictetus
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.