The Dying Month
We can make resolutions and pursue a star, but like the eagle, we can also sit still and watch
January is the hard month, the dying month. New Year brings a weight of resolutions, and in response, January wields a gradual hollowing. At Christmastime we depart reality for a brief festive myth, a few days of giddy expectation. Following the star shining brightly above, we gaze upon a manger of promise. A transformative January beckons. Then, walking forward into that first month, we soon encounter reality.
In the glens, winter grips us still. It’s a strong grip that crushes enthusiasm for any activity beyond the fireside. And on this Saturday morning, I’m content to be seated by the crackling stove in a shepherd’s cottage at the head of a remote Highland glen. My dogs are breathing quietly beneath the armchair. The scent of coffee, freshly brewed, drifts with sweet woodsmoke in the cold air. The room is all woollen tweeds and blankets, cream v-lining, and the peace of decades past. Life happened quietly, stoically, in rooms like these.
From the four-pane sash window, I watch yellow light moving on the loch’s edge. Hail showers pass by in cycles. Clear water runs down from the high tops, riffling over bars of gravel where it enters the loch. A bird emerges from the Scots pines – a golden eagle. He alights on a dead tree of times long past, old roots scoured by the burn. The eagle adjusts his wings, awkward, too large for the tree stump. Light glints on his beak.
