I keep a careful watch on my brain, and look for signs.

For instance, the winter solstice was on the 21st, Christmas Day has come and gone, and the days, gray and weak as they look right now, are inching longer and longer. That’s not obvious; it’s overcast outside, and quite cold. But somehow, maybe because the calendar says so, my brain insists that my part of this tilting planet is getting more and more sun.

Very predictably indeed, therefore, I woke up this morning in a decent mood.

I say predictably, because no matter what I do, my emotional weather sours in late fall and then my inner sunlight starts to glow the day after Christmas. I have survived, my stubborn brain says, and thus can move forward. Another year presents itself, unfolding like a flower, and I start to think about projects.

I have a lot of those projects. There’s a lap quilt in an intermediate stage neatly folded in the basement, for instance. I have a new bookcase, and an array of unread books in it waiting for my attention. I just pulled out a sketchbook I completed last year, and am thinking about which pages I want to frame.

Another darkness also seems to be lifting, a longer one. Some determined part of my brain (a different one than the part assigned to sunlight) decided that when my husband died three years ago, my own life was almost over. I wrote a short memoir, organized my possessions, cleared out my house of anything unnecessary, got rid of my car, reduced my expenses, and generally made it easier for my family, should I have to be removed or even buried. That sounds depressing, but it wasn’t. It was energetic and systematic, and also a lot of fun. But I have to confess I was, in fact, grieving. Oh, I still am. The other day I wanted to tell my husband something, and was sad because he wasn’t there. But it’s sort of like the solstice. I can see some light.

I’m still getting older, mind you. I’m still a human being, and my life will be over at some point. But that’s not relevant. Since my twenties, whenever I started worrying about the future, I reminded myself that I could walk across the street and get hit by a truck. That thought has always cheered me up and kept me from worrying too much about the future. Yes, I know it’s perverse, but hell, memento mori is fundamentally a positive thought if you take it the right way.

So what’s next? I’m going to the art museum today with a friend. I just started a fresh journal. I’m going to start another sketchbook. And I’m going to hang up some pictures. Or maybe I won’t get around to most of it. It doesn’t matter either way.

It’s those feelings of light, of possibility, and of things to do next that matter.