As winter approaches, I like the dark times. Before light, before all the colors come back. When wildness skitters into hidden places before the sun, and Bodi follows scent trails into the brush.

This morning we walk down to the lake head where three loons float high in the water, still only shadows in the fog. At the little store, two men chat, drink first coffees from paper cups, cigaret-grizzled voices bantering. Bodi visits, hopes for dropped crumbs. Across the road, 10 crows are raucous, flap up out of newly bare tree branches, settle back again. We watch them for a while.

And then the first light comes. Tree colors blush into the lake.

But I miss the shadowy world. I miss missing you. I liked being broken open and pressed down, down onto that dull blade of loss. I liked the quivering jelly-fleshed realness. The mystery breathing down my neck. I liked my heart wrenched open, and the flood, the sea of feelings washing over me.

I liked the sinking down.

Now, I’m okay, I guess. I’m getting used to the blanketed everydayness of you being gone. This morning I love the beauty of first light, the colors coming back to trees, to the water, the sand. My body emerging out of shadows.

But the longing lingers for those darker times when I was still waiting for you.