Diary 25
MEDITATIVE ACT
I wake up before the sun, when the shape of the day hasn’t yet revealed itself. Still soft with sleep, this ritual is a slow passage into the dawn. Time feels malleable in this space— I flatten & fold it into the pages of my journal.
NIGHT VISION
”Since before we were homosapiens humans have been seeking out spaces of darkness in which to find & make meaning; & there’s something seemingly paradoxical in that. That darkness might be a medium of vision, & that descent may be a movement towards revelation.” Robert Macfarlane
Robert Macfarlane so beautifully articulates the answer to a question I’ve been asking recently, after many nights spent alone, working in candlelight, or on a long walk after dark— Why does darkness feel so essential to healing? There’s something in my soul that’s been burrowing in the light, & comes out, searching, at night. His explanation tells me that this is because darkness offers the privacy that true contemplation, & introspection, requires. That to find & make meaning, (which currently translates for me as organizing chaos), we have to, to some degree, lean into darkness. Whether it’s waking up before the sun, or staying up later in the evenings, darkness offers us “alone time” to shed our protective skins, to meditate, & to resolve. As if the blanket of night is a blank canvas on which we can project our deepest thoughts & feelings. A place to build altars, make amends, or a place in which to start over again.
SOILED DOVE
I run to open the kitchen window at the sight of a raven flying towards it. The black wings so intent I can’t tell if a hawk is after it. There’s a moment of panic as I struggle with the latch, uncounsciously holding my breath, anxious but deliberate as I finally succeed—prying the window open with two hands, the black mass barely diving in, and then I realize it’s not a raven at all.
I stand still to catch my breath. It has a thin, straight bill— maybe a black imperial pigeon. I stabilize myself with one hand on the edge of the kitchen sink. There’s a white blade of sunlight coming from the open window, casting a stark line across the floor. The pigeon, startled, puffs up it’s feathers in the sunbeam.
I make my way towards the bird & notice, in between twinkling specks of dust, the feathers covered in mud— soft, thick, & black, looks as heavy as tar. I run my eyes along the pigeon’s face, legs, & tail, the mud so dense I can’t see the colors underneath— and that’s when I identify it: the thin bill, the short, reddish legs & square tail, the body of a mourning dove.
And it occurs to me: I’m standing in my kitchen, with a soiled dove at my feet.
The dove trembles under her coat of dark, wet earth, & lets out a single, shy coo. We study each other under the dust-flecked sunlight.
