The Year Landing All at Once

November twenty-sixth. I got up at six-fifteen because my body had apparently decided we were done sleeping, which, fine. The apartment was dark in the specific way it only gets in late November, where the darkness has a quality to it, like something dense and patient sitting just outside the glass.

I made coffee. Stood at the counter. Did not immediately open anything or check anything. This felt like a small victory and also just like being too tired to move. The cord was on the windowsill doing its cord thing. Gerald had a new shadow going, the overcast light outside was flat enough that even the vine was casting something soft against the wall. I noticed this for a while. That was the first twenty minutes of Thanksgiving.

There is a specific kind of tired that shows up this time of year that isn't about sleep. It's the year pressing in, not badly, just present. The full weight of it sitting quietly in the room with you.

Standing, barely. The windowsill does most of the work.

I thought about the route I ran in September. I thought about the maker's market. I thought about Carol's box, folded flat on the kitchen shelf. None of it felt heavy, exactly. It just felt like a lot of time that had happened.

The mug is doing the heavy lifting this morning.

I was standing there long enough that the coffee got warm instead of hot, which is how I like it anyway, so there was no downside. At some point the light outside shifted, still overcast, but a different shade of overcast, the way November mornings have several acts before noon. I thought: this is the whole year landing. And that seemed right. Not a complaint. Just an accurate read of the weather inside.