- Ice on the ponds, glimmering in moonlight.
- Question: what keeps one's fears of the dark night forest at bay? Answer: the awareness of doing work on that land, and having to do more.
- The heft of big rocks that make up my new wall.
- My pupils dilating against the dark behind the house, then widening again when the only light comes from stars and moon.
And inside?
- The loveliness of firewood dried these past two years, burning in the main stove.
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Question: what keeps one's fears of the dark night forest at bay? Answer: the awareness of doing work on that land, and having to do more.
Curious: how so?
Work is practical, focused. There are quantities of wood to haul, boughs to saw, rocks to schlepp. The long drainage ditch is a known thing to the last inch.
Walking across the land, I see work everywhere needing to be done, solidifying from mystery. That ominous lump? A boulder we need to move. That weirdly regular pillar? The lower compost pile.
The possibilities and openness of work don't really appear. How long it'll take to hew that huge trunk isn't an issue, but thinking of the saw, the shoulder muscles, the sawdust - those are real things in the dark.
I still remember that night you turned into a cul-de-sac, parked and turned off the car lights.
There's a reason all those fairy tales warn about going into the forest, you know.
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