Text: Ellen Wild
Sometimes, everything is grey. The sky, the clouds, the waves. The mist, wrapping you in a wet chill. Sometimes, even the best view looks ugly. You feel deceived. When you look at that overly edited photo you found online; and compare it to the rainy, grey landscape in front of you. This isn’t what it is supposed to look like!
Autumn can be the most beautiful time of the year. Letting go and freefalling into darkness. So scary, so brave, so beautiful. But sometimes, all you can see and hear and smell is grey. Except under your feet, where it is a muddy, brown, slippery slope.
Winter isn’t always the dark night that you hear from its reputation. No. Sometimes the darkest, most miserable point, is right before. It is like standing in front of a door. Behind it lie the white crystal, snowy mountains, lit by the starry skies of bright, new beginnings.
But your body feels so heavy that you can’t seem to lift your arms to reach the doorknob. So, you just stand there and look at it. A heavy, brown feeling in your stomach. It is making you sick. You just don’t feel like going through that door. Nope. No way. Just leave me here in the grey trenches of dark suspense.
And you don’t have to, if you don’t want to. Just like in Stephen King’s Dark Tower. If you walk around it, the door disappears. Behind it more grey and brown mud. You could sulk all you want. You could stay here for as long as you desire. But you will find no magic on this side. It can be easy to forget that it isn’t a competition. Conquering yourself and opening inner doors.
It is easy to forget that you are not alone. The mist can be so dense, the grey so suffocating. In this dark place at the end of the world. That is why we lit lights, this time of the year. So, we can find each other in the darkness, behind the clouds.
Lights in the windows, lights in the streets. Candles on the table.
It is easier to be brave when you stand together. No one ever decided that it is supposed to be hard. I don’t know where you heard that. No one ever wrote in stone for it to be difficult and alone and way to brave for you to master.
So, take the first step. Light a candle. So that people can find you. Don’t wait for them to come to you, sitting in your dark trench. The doom of winter deceiving you. Lit a light. We will make it through.