A spoonful of dusk helps the medicine go down

For various reasons, my heart and soul have been pretty weary lately. Last night I was listlessly doing dishes, my hands busy while my head was mired in melancholy. A breeze blew in the kitchen window and ruffled my hair, a gentle hand telling me to stop what I was doing and go outside. So I did.

I snatched one of the kids' blankets off the floor, wrapped it around myself and plunked down in my favourite green lawn chair. It was dusk. The sun had barely set, and the sky painted itself in purple and navy above the treeline. Stars winked at me. Bats swooped down like burnt falling stars, crickets sang, leaves whispered. Somewhere below the hill, a dog barked as a motobike buzzed down the road. Somewhere beyond the cornfield, near the river, coyotes began to yip and whine their night song; somewhere in the falling darkness, every bitter thought floated out of my head.

Dusk had the power to do what exercise, wine, talking, writing, crying and sulking could not: it made me remember that I was part of a greater world, a small cog in a vast universe. My disappointment and hurt wouldn't break me, just as they wouldn't make more than a tiny ripple in the overall stream of my life. That's all this was: a ripple, a few circles made by a stone that would soon drift away. I would survive, and I would smile, and I would be happy again.

A spoonful of dusk helped me swallow a bitter pill.