Advent 1: The Dark

Where All Life Begins

The miniature but realistic model of a human skull grins at me from my mantelpiece as I sit in the afternoon sunlight streaming through the nose-prints my dog adorns my front windows with. Memento mori. Remember you have to die. The skull sits among my carefully curated nature-magic aesthetic decorations. A half gallon mason jar of pothos in water cascades down one side. Mosses and bark and acorns and feathers my children gifted me from our wanderings are enclosed in a glass canister next to a tiny corked jar containing cardiospermum halicacabum seed pods that look like balloons. Another holds two perfect dragonfly wings I found on the walk in front of my house one day. Dried flowers poke out from between my reclaimed wine bottle taper holders that I carefully spray-painted to look like mercury glass. 

I never fully decorated for Halloween this year, and as a result my skull sits with its compulsory grin above a garland of rainbow pom-poms I hung for pride month and never took down. My…