Lorehouse

Grief is a strange acquaintance, like a ne'er-do-well cousin who turns up unexpectedly or a stray cat that wanders in and out at will. There seems no rhyme or reason to when Grief pays a visit, and you can never know how long it will stay.
Sometimes you wake in the middle of the night to find it sitting on your chest, throttling your breathing and gazing down at you with unblinking golden eyes. Sometimes it's a smell that reminds you of someone and you turn to see the old troublemaker watching you, tail twitching. Twitching with what? Satisfaction? Anticipation? Simple nervous energy? Sometimes it stays away so long you think maybe it has forgotten you, moved on to bother somebody else. Then a flurry of autumn leaves scatter across the road and as they blow away, you see that familiar form again and your heart sinks.

Today is the autumn equinox, which Old English speakers called emniht. Emniht is itself a shortening of the longer form, efennihte, though I am only aware of one instance of the longer form (in an Anglo-Saxon abridgement of De Natura Rerum by the venerable Bede). This is the official shift from the long days and short nights of summer to the approach of winter. From there will be more dark than light, and more night that day, until the solstice, or sunn-stede.

Two days before the turning of the seasons from summer to autumn, I am building this blog.