Candle in the window

This week the weather turned cold. Until Monday, I was usually comfortable in skirts without anything on my legs and bare arms were not crazy. And then, we woke up and could practically see our breath inside the house. We have had a good run. A long time coming summer, surrendered gracefully to autumn and the warm days have lingered until now.

All week, even when it was not dark yet, I felt the urge to burn a candle. To have that flickering presence gave me comfort and I could not make supper without one.

I could not quite put my finger on why I suddenly thought about lighting one.

And then I thought about the tendency to light candles when someone dies or is missing, or lighting candles in church and at romantic interludes.

Lighting candles sears a path between us and someone or something else. It illuminates a way to connect with someone we can't see and the softer, heat generating light helps us get intimately acquainted with someone we don't know well yet.

In the season of turning inwards, sometimes the person we can't see properly, or don't know very well, is ourselves.

Rose Cousins "The Darkness"

"you can't keep the darkness out..."

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