Happy 2022! I almost certainly have Covid! Of course, there are no tests, and a matter of waiting for PCR. A fitting conclusion to the year and a fitting entrance into this next one and the rest of my somewhat tired, exhausting, and pointless life. 

As Charles Wright says: what's still alive puts its arms around me, amen from the evergreens that want my heart on their ribbed sleeves. 

I could have fed myself pretty well out hiking Falls Hollow today, at least. The winter mushrooms were effusive, like applause. I felt like I could find them everywhere, just by opening my eyes and looking around. I found brilliant garnet red jelly ears, the starts for lion's mane, and some of the most beautiful winter oysters that I've ever harvested. They were on a downed hardwood across a deep span of creek, and the rocks were slippery even just up on the allegedly dry trail. I lost a foot out from under me crossing to get them, but a wet shoe isn't anything on a 60-something winter day. I tried to think of it like Beluga Day, the sweat and the river dive that I now haven't done for two years. But it's hard to miss the spiritual significance of it all, or lacking the ceremonial shedding of it, the energy of the last two years coming along with me like cherished little shadows.

I'm sorry to talk so much about mushrooms, but after the hike, I did a couple walking laps of the graveyard. There were even more winter oysters there! Huge patches on old dying trees that I'd never seen before, and big bunches along some of the spots I've harvested from before. I supposed it's all this warm, damp weather, although apparently we're supposed to get real snow here overnight. I expect there are some cold-weather-loving people who are really excited about the prospect of it. I hope that they are and that if it comes, it makes them happy. For my part, I am just blearily trying to keep breathing. 

I've been making a lot of fires, which I enjoy. I'm sick enough that sleeping is a little bad, but seem okay enough to be outside and moving around, albeit if I stay away from other people. (Nothing better for winter depression than that! It's not like I feel so isolated that I'm constantly vaguely disassociating!) I keep trying to think that the days are getting incrementally lighter, though I have yet to see any real evidence of it. 

Still, the birds hang around and cheer me up - mostly the damn crows, who see me as a walking, sort of breathing vending machine. I'm starting to trim back some of the dead coneflowers and sunflowers I've left up as a food source for them; after all, there are about three or four other actual bird feeders in my yard now. Today, I gave the butterfly bush - the one moved from my old house on Beverly - a trim. It was cutting out the light to my front beds and is now higher than my front porch, a proper tree. It feels good to do those kinds of little chores, and of course my house is cleaner than ever.  

Okay. More tomorrow.