December 7
The temperatures now plummeting well below zero & the snow consistent, with solstice approaching & the low-slung arc of light that passes for day painting the mountains in alpenglow. I think of rosy-fingered dawn when I, long awake, see that roseate hue bathe the sloping angles. & the closer to solstice, the less that light changes, such that the day entire (all five hours of it) is appareled in that same coloration. & then one’s days seem like a wandering about in a dreamscape the magnitude of which only further confounds it—the only thing calling you back to its fundamental, mineral reality the cold. I’ll be bound here for the holidays after all, & won’t be seeing the flatlands & the cornfields & the palpable heft of the Midwestern grey sky spread thick above the prairies. Instead, it will be the quiet Alaskan winter, the dogs, the trails, & the plunging mercury. It’s hard to describe how winter here makes you feel, physically, mentally—how the darknes