“Some hauntings are not caused by the dead, but by the living who refuse to leave.”

The clock on the mantel ticked toward midnight, its slow, deliberate thud echoing through Edward's empty Victorian parlor. Each second sounded heavier than the last, as though the house itself were counting down. He sat in his high-backed chair, a glass of amber scotch resting untouched on the side table, watching snow whip sideways against the tall, narrow windowpanes.

The house stood at the edge of town, all steep gables and ornamental trim—once proud, now weathered. Its paint had faded to the color of old bone. The iron fence out front leaned as though tired of holding its ground. Beyond it, the streetlamp cast a weak amber circle onto drifts already half-buried, the rest of the world swallowed by white and dark.

For forty years, Edward had spent New Year’s Eve in this house.
For forty years, he had waited.

It always began at 11:50 p.m.

First, the temperature dropped—not gradually, but suddenly, as if winter had slipped indoors without knocking. His breath bloomed pale and silvery in the air. Then came the scent: lavender and old lace, unmistakable and intimate, as though someone long gone had brushed past him in the hall.

Finally, she appeared.

The Specter of the Staircase.

She emerged at the top landing, pale and translucent, her silk gown torn and trailing as if caught forever in flight. Her eyes were wide with a terror that never softened, never dimmed. Her mouth moved in a soundless scream as she descended, one desperate step at a time, before vanishing into the cellar door the instant the clock struck midnight.

Edward was not afraid.

He had long since stopped being afraid of her. In truth, he found comfort in the ritual. In all the years since the house had emptied—since voices, laughter, footsteps, and warmth had abandoned it—she had remained. She was the only presence that still acknowledged him. The only proof that he had not entirely slipped into nothing.

As the minute hand clicked toward ten-to-twelve, Edward leaned forward, anticipation stirring in his chest like an old ache.

The air sharpened.
Lavender bloomed.

Right on time, she appeared at the top of the stairs.

But tonight, she seemed different.

More vivid. More real.

Her hands clutched her throat as she descended, yet her movements slowed halfway down. Her mouth closed. The silent scream ceased. Slowly—deliberately—she turned her head.

For the first time in four decades, her gaze met his.

Edward’s breath caught.

There was no terror in her eyes now. Only a deep, unbearable pity.

He lifted his glass, forcing a smile.
“Happy New Year, my dear,” he whispered.

She reached out a shimmering hand toward him. When she spoke, her voice was no longer soundless—it was soft, melodic, and it resonated deep within his bones.

“Oh, you poor soul,” she said gently.
“You still don’t realize which one of us is the memory.”

The clock struck midnight.

The chimes rang out—and the world shifted.

Warmth rushed through the room like breath returning to frozen lungs. The peeling wallpaper smoothed into rich gold. Dust vanished. Light spilled from chandeliers that had not glowed in decades. The scent of roasting meat and fresh bread filled the air, layered with laughter and voices.

Edward looked down.
His hand was gone.
He looked at the chair.
It was empty.

He turned back just as the woman solidified before him—vibrant, alive, her gown whole and luminous. The front door burst open as guests poured in, cheeks flushed from the cold, raising glasses and calling out greetings. Music swelled. The house pulsed with life.

She stepped through the space where Edward believed he sat, laughing freely now, and crossed the room to throw her arms around a man waiting for her—her husband—his face alight with joy.

And then Edward understood.

All those years, the terror on her face had never been about her own death.

It was because every New Year’s Eve, at the stroke of midnight, she saw him—a grey, flickering shadow of a man sitting alone in her parlor, clinging to a world that had already let him go.

And this year, at last, she had learned the truth.

So had he.

* * * * * * * * * *

It is still dark outside—but not in a way that feels heavy or foreboding.

This is a companionable darkness, one that makes the wee cottage feel warmer, more intimate, as though the night itself has drawn closer for shelter. The single streetlamp at the corner spills its soft amber light across frost-laced branches and new snow, revealing a small, hushed world that seems content simply to exist.

The temperature is meant to fall all day. A proper winter’s New Year’s Eve.

I have never been much for this particular holiday. Not out of cynicism—just neutrality. I’ve always been more inclined to stay home, to let the evening belong to others. Leave the night to the amateurs, as the saying goes. And I often wonder what, exactly, we believe changes at the turning of a calendar page. Is time anything more than our attempt to place markings on eternity?

So I sit here early in the morning, coffee mug close at hand, listening to the Royal Philharmonic’s performance of the Warsaw Concerto. Music born of another dark chapter in history—written in a time when the world itself felt uncertain, fragile, and afraid. I find myself wondering whether our own era echoes that moment. Perhaps it does.

And then my thoughts soften and drift.

I remember something Dr. Wayne Dyer once said:
“Your sense of awe at all of the miracles you see around you allows you to think, see, and live more of these miraculous occurrences.”

It feels especially true this morning.

As a photographer, I often remind myself that it’s not what we look at—it’s what we see. Through a viewfinder, an ordinary streetlamp becomes a beacon. Frost becomes calligraphy. Snow becomes silence made visible. The mundane reveals its hidden life.

If that is possible with a photograph, why not with time itself?

Perhaps what unsettles us about endings and beginnings is not the passing of moments, but our reluctance to let them pass. Perhaps peace comes not from holding on, but from noticing—truly noticing—what is here now, and allowing it to be enough.

And so I begin this day—the quiet close of one year, with another just around the corner—not with resolution or celebration, but with attention. With warmth. With wonder.

Happy New Year.

~Wylddane

"When the way disappears, the heart becomes the map."


On the final evening of the year, Liam left the last lamplight of Lone Pine behind and followed the narrow footpath that curved along Stillwater Gleam. In his coat pocket rested a small brass compass—his grandfather’s—smooth from decades of use, though its needle had long since frozen in place. He carried it anyway, more habit than hope.

Snow began gently, almost kindly. It softened the lake’s edges, blurred the reeds, hushed the world into suggestion. Liam told himself he would turn back soon. Just to the pines. Just a little farther.

Then the wind came.

It rose without warning, lifting the snow and throwing it sideways, stealing depth and distance until sky, lake, and land collapsed into one breathless white. The path vanished beneath his boots. The compass in his pocket felt suddenly heavy, useless.

Liam stopped.

His breath quickened. Cold pressed inward, past wool and bone. He tried to turn back, but there was no back—only sameness in every direction. Lone Pine had not been hidden by the storm; it had been erased.

That was when he saw them.

They stood near the lake’s edge, pale figures rising from the snow—too tall, too still. Faces formed and unformed in the shifting light. Snow ghosts, the old stories whispered. Those who appear when the year is ending and you are not ready.

Fear closed around his chest. He thought of running, though there was nowhere to go. One figure seemed to lean toward him, its arm lifting as if in warning.

“Please,” he said—not to them, but to himself.

The wind eased.
Snow fell straight down.

The nearest ghost softened, its sharp outline dissolving. Snow slid away to reveal bark beneath. A pine tree stood there, ancient and steady. Another ghost unraveled, then another, until only trees remained—bowed under snow, patient witnesses to countless winters.

Liam exhaled, a laugh breaking free, shaky and bright. He understood then: the ghosts were never meant to block his way. They had appeared to stop him—to ask him to listen.

He stepped toward Stillwater Gleam.

The lake lay dark and silent, a mirror without reflection, holding the sky in its depth. In that stillness, the old year loosened its grip. Regret, worry, the need to be certain—all of it fell away like excess snow from branches.

Liam reached into his pocket and held the compass. The needle did not move. It didn’t need to.

From across the lake, faint and distant, the bells of Lone Pine rang—welcoming the new year. When he turned, the path lay before him again, simple and clear.

He followed it home, leaving behind no footprints the storm could not forgive.

* * * * * * * * * *

It is still dark outside.

The wee cottage glows softly—tree lights twinkling, familiar and kind. Coffee warms my hands as Russell Watson’s beautiful tenor fills the room, singing "lost in the snow". The story lingers with me… then gently releases me back into this moment.

I think about that compass in Liam’s pocket—the one that no longer points north, yet is carried anyway. How often do I do the same, relying on old habits or fixed thinking, forgetting that the truest direction doesn’t come from certainty, but from attention.

Buddha was once asked, “What is the most powerful thing in life?”
He smiled and replied: “Your mind. When you fill it with positive thoughts, your life begins to change.”

I know I forget this. Often. Even though it is my intention—every hour of every day.

This morning, though, offers a beginning. Another chance. Like standing at the edge of a quiet lake after a storm, realizing the fear was never the guide—the stillness was.

Once again, today, I start with this beautiful morning—metaphorically lost in the snow, yet finding my way. Not by force. Not by certainty. But by trust.
​
And so I begin this day.

~Wylddane

The bench had been placed there years ago, facing the small lake as if it had chosen the view for itself. Two planks for sitting, one for leaning back, all weathered smooth by seasons of sun, rain, and the long, deliberate patience of winter.

During the snowstorm, it sat empty.

Snow fell steadily, soft as breath, erasing footprints before they could decide where they were going. The lake beyond the bench blurred into a pale sheet of white and gray, its edges dissolving into sky. Pines bowed under the weight of fresh snow, their branches whispering as flakes slipped free and fell.

Once, the bench had known company.

Morning walkers with hands tucked deep into coat pockets. A couple who sat close but spoke little, letting the lake say what neither of them could. An old man who came at dusk, resting his hands on his cane, watching the water as if it might answer a question he no longer remembered asking.

But today, there was only snow.

The bench did not mourn the emptiness. It understood something people often forget: absence is not abandonment. It is simply a pause. A held breath.

Snow gathered along its slats, outlining its shape more clearly than summer ever had. In the hush of the storm, the bench became what it had always been—a place of waiting, not longing. A place prepared to hold whatever came next.

As the snowfall softened, light shifted almost imperceptibly. The lake remained silent, but the silence was no longer lonely. It was complete. The bench waited—not for someone in particular, but for the simple certainty that someone, someday, would sit again, breathe deeply, and feel less alone than they had moments before.

And in that knowing, the bench was content.

* * * * * * * * * *
It snowed all day yesterday. Not fiercely, not dramatically—just steadily, faithfully, as if winter had decided to stay awhile and read alongside me. I napped. I read. The blizzard that was forecast never quite arrived, but the snow did, and somehow that was enough.

This morning it is still dark. The wee cottage glows softly—the Christmas tree lights, a single lamp in the bay window. I refill my coffee mug and take a sip. Saint-Saëns’ Organ Symphony fills the room, the music rising and settling like breath itself.

Outside, the streetlamp reveals a world etched in white—parking-lot-white, hush-white, like a painting still deciding what it wants to become.

I think of that bench by the lake. Empty, yes—but not lonely. Waiting, but not anxious.

A monk was once asked, “What is worry?”
He smiled and said, “It is the thief that steals today’s peace while pretending to prepare you for tomorrow.”

Peace is not found by controlling tomorrow.
It is found by fully living today.

I take another sip of coffee and let the clutter in my mind loosen its grip. I let this moment be enough—the music, the snow, the quiet glow of morning. Like the bench, I don’t need to rush toward what comes next.

And so I begin this day as it is given to me.
​
At peace.

“Nothing is ever truly empty.
It is only waiting.”

~Wylddane

Everyone in the house believed the cat—whose name was Jasper, though he answered to none of it—spent his mornings napping.

Everyone was wrong.

Each morning at precisely the moment the coffee kettle began its first whisper, Jasper climbed onto the red wool blanket on the window seat and assumed his post. From there, he oversaw the world.

This particular Christmas morning was especially important.

Outside the frosted window stood two deer, neatly arranged as if they had practiced. Jasper narrowed his eyes. He had seen this sort of thing before.

“They’re early,” he muttered to himself, tail flicking once. “And unannounced.”

The deer did not move. They stared back with the polite stillness of guests who had rung the doorbell and decided to wait forever.

Jasper shifted his weight, sat taller, and initiated what he considered Phase One of Defense: Intense Observation.

He observed their ears. Their hooves. Their general deer-ness.

Behind him, a lantern glowed warmly. Pine boughs twinkled. A red bow perched above the window like punctuation at the end of a very festive sentence. Jasper approved of the décor—it suggested civilization, order, and snacks.

The deer, however, suggested possibility.

“Look,” Jasper thought, “I don’t mind wildlife. I simply prefer it to remain…wild. Over there.”

One of the deer blinked.

Jasper blinked back, slower.

This was Phase Two: Psychological Dominance.

Nothing happened.

Outside, snow drifted softly. The Christmas tree shimmered faintly beyond the glass. Somewhere in the woods, a cardinal scolded the morning for being too quiet.

Jasper sighed. This was exhausting work.

At last, he settled into Phase Three: Magnanimous Tolerance. He curled his tail around his paws, lifted his chin, and allowed the deer to remain—on a provisional basis.

“Fine,” he conceded silently. “You may admire the lights. But understand this: this window is mine.”

The deer seemed to nod, or at least Jasper chose to interpret it that way.

And so they stood—cat and deer, inside and out—keeping watch over Christmas morning. Guardians of different realms. Silent witnesses to a world that, for just a moment, felt perfectly balanced.

Jasper yawned.

“Committee adjourned,” he decided.

* * * * * * * * * *

This morning feels like that quiet moment before the world fully stirs—the hour when light lingers a little longer, when winter loosens its grip just enough to remind us that change is always underway.

As the days slowly lengthen, may our spirits do the same.

May we find ourselves blooming not all at once, but gently—like light through frost, like warmth returning to the woods.

To those celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or the Winter Solstice, and to those simply greeting another morning: may this season offer peace, laughter, reflection, and small moments of wonder.

May we watch more closely.
Judge less quickly.
And sit, now and then, at our own window—warm, present, and quietly grateful.
​
However you greet this day, may it greet you kindly in return. ✨

* * * * * * * * * *
“In the stillness of winter, something is always listening.”

~Wylddane
​

In the northwoods village of Lone Pine, Christmas Eve arrived without ceremony. Snow had fallen overnight—fine, careful, complete—leaving the town wrapped in a silence that felt deliberate, as though the world itself had agreed to hold its breath.

Liam rose before dawn, as he always did on this day.

For him, Christmas did not begin with gifts or greetings. It began with first light. He had come to believe—slowly, over years—that there was a moment each morning when the world remembered itself. Only after witnessing that moment did the day feel properly underway.

He moved through the small kitchen by habit alone. Kettle. Mug. Coat. The floorboards creaked softly beneath his steps, the way they always had. Outside, the cold waited with patience.

This year, fog lay thick across the land, pressing the horizon into a single, unbroken gray. No thinning. No promise. The eastern sky offered nothing to watch.

Still, Liam pulled on his coat and walked the familiar path beyond town. Tradition, he believed, wasn’t about guarantees. It was about showing up.

The snow muffled his boots as he climbed the low hill overlooking Lone Pine. He paused where the trees thinned, brushed the frost from the old stump, and sat. His breath rose and vanished. Time loosened its grip.

Minutes passed. The fog did not lift.

For a moment, doubt crept in—not loud, not sharp, just a quiet wondering. Had he mistaken habit for meaning? Was this ritual only something he carried now because it was easier than letting it go?

Then—sound.
Faint, at first. Almost imagined.

A door opening somewhere below. The soft knock of wood against wood. Footsteps crossing a porch. The distant clink of a kettle set on a stove. A murmur of voices—low, unhurried, beginning the day.

Liam turned.
Down in the village, a single window glowed.
Then another.
And another.

Light appeared not all at once, but deliberately. Lamps were lit. Candles struck. Fires coaxed awake. One by one, Lone Pine stirred—not with urgency, not with announcement, but with care.

The fog caught the light and held it, blurring edges, softening corners, until the village seemed suspended inside a pale lantern. No sunrise broke the horizon. No golden arc crowned the day.

Yet something unmistakable had arrived.

Liam felt it settle—not as joy exactly, and not as certainty—but as steadiness. As presence. As people choosing warmth in the dark without needing proof that the day would reward them for it.

He stood at last, brushing snow from his gloves.

The light had come.
Just not from the sky.

* * * * * * * * * *
I take a sip of coffee from my old vintage Christmas mug. Like magic, the coffee always seems to taste better when I use it—as though the mug itself remembers other mornings, other Decembers, and shares them back with me.

Outside, it is still dark. Sunrise is a ways off. A single streetlamp highlights the delicate etchings of Jack Frost on the windowpanes. The glow from the fireplace and the Christmas tree adds warmth and color to those icy patterns, turning cold into quiet beauty. I gaze at them for a long moment and smile.

The radio is tuned to KDFC, in the midst of its annual Christmas music program. Pavarotti’s voice fills the room with Ave Maria, rich and human and reverent. The sound lingers like breath in winter air.

I think of these wise words:
Never forget—you make the world a better place when you choose integrity and kindness, especially when others do not. Kindness does not mean tolerating harm or injustice. It means refusing to continue the cycle of pain. It means choosing to be the change.

Like Liam on the hill above Lone Pine, I realize that light does not always arrive dramatically. Sometimes it comes quietly—from small choices, warm rooms, familiar music, and hearts willing to begin again.

With that understanding held gently, I begin this day.
Merry Christmas Eve.
​
* * * * * * * * * *
Light does not always arrive with a sunrise.
Sometimes it waits for us to begin.
~Wylddane

“Be careful what you press your heart against--
some doors open both ways.”

On December 23, 2025, Silas polished his grandmother’s antique mahogany mirror.

It had followed the family for decades—hung in hallways and bedrooms, always placed where winter light lingered longest. Its carved frame, darkened by time, was worn smooth where hands had rested without thinking. His grandmother believed the mirror possessed a particular kind of honesty.

“It shows what you’re reaching for,” she once said,
“and what you’ve already been given.”

Silas hadn’t understood that then. Tonight, alone in his apartment, he polished slowly, almost reverently. December pressed its quiet weight against the windows. The rooms were tidy, familiar, carefully arranged. A good life, by most measures—yet one he often experienced as incomplete, as though something essential were always just ahead of him, waiting.

The cloth moved across the glass.
The reflection did not.
Silas stopped.

The man in the mirror was himself—but framed by warmth instead of shadow. Behind him glowed a room alive with lamplight and pine scent. A Christmas tree stood nearby, decorated with handmade ornaments. A woman stepped into view, resting her hand easily at his shoulder. A toddler followed, laughing, dragging a wooden toy across the floor.

“Come on,” the woman said softly.

“Daddy,” the child laughed.

Silas felt the familiar ache of elsewhere—the sense that real life was happening just beyond the careful edges of his own. Without thinking, he raised his hand. The other Silas mirrored the gesture and pressed his palm flat against the glass.

The mirror softened.
Rippled.
Silas stepped through.

Warmth wrapped around him. The house breathed. The woman embraced him as though his body already knew her shape. The child laughed again. For a suspended moment, Silas believed this was what he had been missing all along.

Then—almost reluctantly—he turned back.

The mirror now showed his apartment.

But not as he remembered it.

Light glowed from a familiar lamp. A chair sat pulled close to the table, as if someone had lingered there in conversation. Books he loved lined the shelves, their spines worn by rereading. A coat hung patiently by the door. A candle burned steadily—not dramatic, not symbolic—just present. The room looked warm.
Intentional. Complete.

It was not a lonely space.
It was a life that had been waiting for him to live inside it.

The man standing there—his other self—did not look trapped or triumphant. He looked settled. As if he had finally stopped reaching past his own days.

And Silas understood—not with regret, but with clarity:

He had been so busy reaching forward that he had failed to live where he already stood.

Love had been present all along—in friendships, in rituals, in the quiet faithfulness of his days—but he had treated it as temporary, something to be replaced by a fuller version later.

The mirror stilled.
The glass hardened.

Behind him, the warm room stirred with life—needs, noise, expectation.

Silas did not reach for the mirror again.

He had learned what it was meant to teach.

And carrying that knowing with him—not as loss, but as instruction--
he stepped forward, resolved at last
to finish the life he had already begun.

* * * * * * * * * *
Morning once again.

Cloudy. Mild for December in the northwoods. The sky still insists it is night, though I know better—the only light a single streetlamp holding its post. A small fire crackles in the hearth, steady and companionable.

My Christmas mug warms my hands. Coffee brings me back. Toast with Bonne Maman strawberry jam tastes like familiarity and grace. Classical music drifts through the wee cottage—Christmas notes from KQED, distant yet right at home.

Each morning, something meets me.

Today, it is recognition.

Dr. Wayne Dyer offers this:

“Peace isn’t something you ultimately receive when you slow down the pace of your life. Peace is what you’re capable of being and bringing to every encounter and event in the waking moments of your life.”

I think of how often fulfillment is postponed—treated as something that begins later, somewhere else. How easy it is to believe the meaningful life is the one we haven’t quite reached yet.

But perhaps the work is simpler—and braver—than that.

Perhaps it is to live more fully in the rooms we already inhabit. To notice the warmth that has been there all along. To stop reaching past what is already offering itself.

This feels like a good place to begin again.

More coffee.
​
And so the day starts--
not searching--
but standing present--
and letting that be enough.

~Wylddane

Liam was ten years old the winter Lassie came into his life.

She was one of a litter at a neighboring farm—tumble-soft puppies with bright eyes and unsteady paws—but when she looked at him, she stayed looking. That was how he knew. He didn’t understand then how rare it was to be chosen twice in one moment, but later he would.

She was a border collie mix—quick of mind, quicker of heart. His imagination named her Lassie, after the dog on television who always knew the way home, always arrived in time. Somehow, the name fit.

They grew up together.

In December, the woods belonged to them. Snow softened the world, wrapped sound in cotton, and turned every path into a promise. Lassie ran ahead, then back, then ahead again—never leaving him, only orbiting him, as if her joy needed motion. When Liam slowed, she slowed. When he stopped, she returned to his side and waited.

There was a lone white pine on the lake shore—tall, stately, older than memory. Liam climbed it often, finding a perch where the world made sense. Childhood questions. Teenage longings. College dreams not yet spoken aloud. From that height, everything felt possible.

Below, Lassie waited.

Sometimes she sat. Sometimes she slept. Always she watched.

At the end of every school day—grade school, junior high, high school—she was there at the end of the driveway. Snowbanked December afternoons, boots wet and mittens stiff, the sky already dimming—there she was, joy made visible. No matter what the day had been, it ended well.

When Liam left for college, Lassie learned a new kind of waiting. And when he returned—weekends, holidays, Christmas—she was the first to greet him, as if time had simply paused until he came home again.

He told her everything.

The mysteries. The fears. The hopes he didn’t yet know how to name. When he was hurt, she leaned closer. When he was happy, she danced it with him. She never answered in words, but she understood in ways words never could.

Years later, she was older. Her body slower. Her eyes still knowing.

One afternoon, they sat together on the front steps of his parents’ house. Lassie leaned into him, her warmth familiar, necessary. She made sounds he had never heard before—low, tender, almost conversational. Liam listened. And in that moment, he understood that she was speaking too. Sharing her own hopes, her own quiet courage. Letting him know the end was near.

She passed days later, resting in the shade of the beech tree in the front yard, the sun warm, his parents with her.

Liam was not.

It is a regret that still visits him softly.

But if love counts for anything—and it does—then Lassie never waited alone.

* * * * * * * * * *

Lassie is with me this morning.

She lies at my feet as I sip my coffee, as real as breath—until I glance down and remember that it is memory that rests there now. But memory, I’ve learned, has weight. It warms. It stays.

Roberto Alagna’s tenor lifts Noël into the wee cottage, filling the room with light the sun has not yet offered. Outside, darkness presses against the windows. Some are troubled by the dark.

I am not.
I find it peaceful.

I think of a quote I read recently—about perspective. About how life shifts depending on where you stand. How comparison steals joy. How kindness and love are the only things that truly hold their value.

Lassie understood this without language.

To her, I was everything. Not measured. Not compared. Just loved.

I pause. My coffee mug is empty.

What should I do?

I think I will refill it.

And this is how I am starting my day--
with gratitude,
with memory,
with love that still waits patiently at my side,
ready to walk the woods once more.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Some souls walk beside us for a lifetime.
Others teach us how to walk alone--
and still feel loved.”
​
~Wylddane

Liam had not meant to stop that day.

He was simply walking past the cages—rows of glass and wire, the hum of fluorescent lights, the faint chorus of small lives waiting. Then it happened: a soft, insistent tug. A gray paw reached through the bars and hooked his sleeve with surprising determination, as if to say, You. Don’t go any farther.

When he turned, he saw her.

A small bundle of gray fur, eyes bright with certainty, gaze steady and unafraid. There was no deliberation, no weighing of options. Love arrived fully formed, immediate and undeniable. Minutes later, he walked out of the store with her tucked into his arms, her body warm against his chest, as if she had always belonged there.

He named her Tanya.

From that day forward, they were family.

Their home had hardwood floors that gleamed in the afternoon light, and a narrow hallway softened by small area rugs. Tanya discovered early on that these rugs were not merely decorative—they were launchpads. She would take a running start, leap onto one with theatrical flair, and slide the length of the hallway, paws splayed, tail aloft, utterly delighted with herself. Liam laughed every time, no matter how many times he’d seen it.

She was clever. Brave. Fiercely loving.

Once, in the dead of night, she leapt onto his chest, pawed his face, refused to be ignored. When he finally woke, the smell of smoke was already in the air. Tanya did not stop until he was fully awake, fully alert. She had saved his life. He never forgot it.

She loved car rides—front paws on the dashboard, eyes wide and curious, the world unfolding mile by mile.

When they made the long drive from the Midwest to San Francisco, nearly two thousand miles of road, she was his constant companion. Together they crossed plains and mountains, sunrise and dusk, motel rooms and open highways. Like Liam, Tanya turned out to be a Californian at heart. She settled into their new life with ease and confidence, as though the golden light had been waiting for her.

In their San Francisco apartment, she claimed her favorite spot: the floor-to-ceiling living room window. From there she watched the Spanish-style house across the street, its red clay tile roof glowing in the sun. Perhaps it was the architecture she admired—or perhaps the birds, the passing shadows, the quiet drama of the neighborhood. She would sit there for long stretches, tail wrapped neatly around her paws, utterly content.

She loved being held. Truly held. Curled against Liam’s chest, purring low and steady, as if reassuring them both that all was well.

Then came the day that changed everything.

A casual belly rub. A pause. A lump beneath his fingers. The vet’s voice was kind but firm. Cancer. Time, suddenly measured differently.

Tanya met it with grace.

Liam stayed close. He always did. And when the time came—when love had done all it could—he let her go with the same devotion with which he had welcomed her in. Even now, years later, he missed her. Some loves do not fade. They simply become quieter, deeper, part of the air we breathe.

And yet—Tanya loved Christmas.

She left the tree alone, dignified and respectful, but wrapping paper? That was another matter entirely. She dove through it, shredded it, reveled in the crinkle and chaos, chased ribbons across the floor like living streams of joy. Somewhere, Liam knew, there existed a photograph of his first California Christmas tree—ornaments glowing, lights soft—and Tanya’s proud, upright tail photobombing the scene. Proof, if any were needed, that joy insists on being included.

On certain December mornings, Liam could almost hear the rustle of wrapping paper again. Almost see her slide down the hallway, triumphant.

Almost feel her weight in his arms.

* * * * * * * * * *
It is still dark outside this solstice morning. Bitterly cold. Sub-zero. The kind of cold that sharpens the stars and hushes the world.

Inside the wee cottage, warmth gathers like a blessing. The furnace hums faithfully. A fire crackles in the fireplace. A Christmas mug, filled to the brim with hot, delicious coffee, warms my hands. Contentment settles in—not loudly, not extravagantly, but surely.

KDFC fills the rooms, carrying a Luigi Boccherini string quartet through the quiet. The music seems to hover, as if it knows how fragile and perfect this moment is.

A thought drifts through my mind—perhaps Buddha, perhaps simply wisdom that belongs to everyone:

Every day you have two choices: see problems or possibilities.
Complain or be grateful.
Live in fear or live in faith.
The difference between a heavy heart and a peaceful one is perspective.
Gratitude and joy aren’t just feelings—they’re decisions.
Choose them, and your life changes.

I take another sip of coffee. I let the words settle.

Today, I choose gratitude.
I choose joy.

I think of Tanya—of love that arrived unannounced and stayed faithful to the end. Of companionship, of courage, of small gray paws that changed the course of a life. I smile.
​
And so this day begins.

* * * * * * * * * *


“Some souls do not pass through our lives.
They settle there, and everything becomes warmer because of it.”

~Wylddane

At the shelter, Harry was not placed behind glass or kept to a single square of floor.
He walked.

He walked the hallways like a gentle steward, padding from room to room, stopping at desks where tired humans worked long hours, lifting his chin for a scratch, offering a quiet reassurance that all was well. He visited the other animals, too—pausing at cages, sitting close, as if to say, You are not forgotten. You are still seen.

Harry was already grown when the world passed him by. Two years old. Too old, some thought, to begin again. But Harry had already begun. He had simply been waiting for the right heart to notice.

When I found him—or perhaps when he found me—nothing about breed mattered. Maine Coon, mix, mystery… none of it could measure what he carried. He brought with him an open-hearted gentleness, a rare, easy love that asked for nothing and gave everything.

At home, Harry became a gathering place.

At parties, laughter filled the rooms, glasses clinked, conversations overlapped—and Harry flowed through it all like warm air. Every time I searched for him, someone had already found him: arms cradling his weight, hands buried in his fur, faces softened by his presence. Even those who swore allegiance to dogs surrendered without a fight. Harry welcomed them all.

The next day, exhausted by joy, he slept like a king who had spent himself wisely.

Years later, when his body grew tired—when his kidneys whispered that they had carried enough—Harry crossed the Rainbow Bridge quietly, the way he had lived. Yet love, once given freely, does not end at thresholds.

In the wee hours between sleep and waking, he returned.

I felt him walk the hallway, the familiar soundless rhythm of paws. I felt the small lift as he hopped onto the bed, the circle of his body curling close, exactly where it had always belonged. When morning fully arrived, he was gone—but not gone.

Afterward, there were moments: standing at the counter, moving through the house, when I felt him lean against my legs. I would look down. Empty air. Full heart.

Harry had learned something important in his years among us. Love does not require a body to remain real. Presence does not vanish simply because eyes cannot see.

And so Harry stayed—visiting still, comforting still, roaming freely now through memory, spirit, and the quiet spaces of the heart.

Everyone loved Harry.
He loved everyone.
And I loved him most.

And love, once chosen, never leaves.

* * * * * * * * * *
Outside, darkness still holds the land. Snow glows softly beneath the streetlights, a pale, quiet shimmer in the cold December air. The northwoods are doing what they do best this time of year—resting beneath a hush.

Inside the wee cottage, it is another world entirely.

Light spills gently from the Christmas tree, its small bulbs like steady stars. Classical Christmas music drifts through the room—KQED reaching all the way from New York City—notes folding themselves into the warmth. The mug in my hands sends up steam. Coffee. Comfort. Ritual.

A quote from Pema Chödrön lingers in the air:

“You are the sky. Everything else—it’s just the weather.”

It stops me.

How often we mistake the weather for who we are. Grief. Joy. Worry. Memory. Longing. All of it moving through us like passing clouds. Even love’s ache. Even absence.

Harry understood this, perhaps better than most. He moved through rooms, through lives, through years, without clinging. He showed up fully. He loved openly. And when the time came, he moved on—yet remained.

I am the sky.
Harry was weather once—warm, golden, kind—and now he is part of the vastness that holds all things.

Darkness presses at the windows, but it cannot enter. The cottage is full of light, warmth, music, memory. And I greet the day as the sky that I am, holding joy and sorrow alike without breaking.

Another sip of coffee.
Another quiet breath.

The wonders of this coming day wait patiently—just beyond the dawn.

* * * * * * * * * *

“Some souls are born knowing how to love without borders--
and once they do, they never truly leave.”

~Wylddane

Liam always said that CJ wasn’t so much a cat as he was a presence.

From the day he brought him home—an orange-and-cream Maine Coon with a ruff like a winter king and eyes the color of late-autumn sunlight—CJ chose him. Not the house. Not the furniture. Him.

The vet had been honest.
“There’s a heart murmur,” she said gently.
Liam nodded, already knowing the answer he would give.

“Then we’ll just love him harder.”

And so they did.

CJ grew into the house as if he had been there all along—claiming the bentwood chair by the lamp as his throne, keeping watch from beneath the Christmas tree, batting at ornaments with slow, deliberate curiosity, as though testing the physics of magic itself. He was a one-man cat, and Liam was his whole world.

In December, CJ became something else entirely.

He took to sitting beneath the tree in the early mornings, when the lights were still glowing and the world outside had not yet remembered itself. Liam would sometimes catch him staring—not at the ornaments, but through them, as if the colored glass and tinsel were windows to somewhere just beyond.

“See anything interesting?” Liam would ask.

CJ never answered.
But his tail would flick once—measured, knowing.

On the morning CJ left this world, the house was impossibly still. Snow pressed its silence against the windows. The fire had burned low. Liam held him close, whispering everything that mattered and nothing that needed explaining.

And in the final moment—just before that brave, tired heart gave out—CJ turned his head and buried his face against Liam’s neck, exactly where he belonged.

Some say animals don’t know when they are crossing.

Liam knew better.

That December, strange things began to happen.

The chair by the lamp creaked at odd hours, as though a great weight had just settled into it. Ornaments beneath the tree would sway without reason. Once—only once—Liam swore he felt a warm brush against his ankle while standing alone in the kitchen.

And every morning, without fail, the house felt watched over.

Not in a way that unsettled him.
In a way that comforted.

One dawn, as Pentatonix’s “Hallelujah” filled the room and the tree lights glowed like small, patient stars, Liam lifted his coffee mug—the one with CJ’s face on it—and whispered, “Good morning, old friend.”

The fire crackled.
The wind sighed outside.
And somewhere between memory and miracle, a golden-eyed watcher kept his post.

Love, Liam realized, does not disappear.

It simply learns how to stay.

* * * * * * * * * *
It is still dark outside this morning.
The windchill is sub-zero, the kind of cold that reminds you where you live—and why you choose it.
Inside the wee cottage, warmth gathers gently. The fire speaks in its soft, ancient language. The Christmas tree lights glow like kindness made visible. I cradle my CJ mug in both hands, feeling more than heat rise from it.

I miss him.
Deeply.

And yet—here he is.

In memory.
In presence.
In the quiet knowing that love shared so completely does not end—it transforms.

Pentatonix sings “Hallelujah,” and the sound feels like a benediction for the day. Just moments ago, I read Dr. Wayne Dyer’s words:

“Peace can be a lens through which we see the world. Be it. Live it. Radiate it out. Peace is an inside job.”

Ah yes.

Peace does not mean the absence of tears.
It means allowing them to fall without fear.

So I begin this day—with a tear in my eye, with gratitude in my heart, and with the quiet certainty that CJ’s love still walks beside me.

Wonderful moments upon which to build more wonderful moments.
​
So it is. 🕯️🐾

* * * * * * * * * *
"Love that is given without condition
does not end—it keeps watch."
​
~Wylddane