January arrived as it always does.
Without ceremony. Without the fresh energy of December or the anticipation of November. Just the deep middle of winter settling into itself, the coldest part, the part that did not pretend to be anything other than what it was. The pack grounds stayed white. The birch in the east courtyard was a still pale shape against the grey mornings. The old oak at the north boundary stood in it the way it had stood in everything for a century, unbothered, entirely itself.
I had always found January clarifying.
Not comfortable. Clarifying. The way cold clarified things, stripping away the texture that accumulated in warmer months, leaving the essential shapes visible.
What was essential was visible to me now in a way it had not been in a long time.
The days had
