Winter then … let us have our winter now.
With pause and hesitance and … slow deliberation …
With wait and stop and still and false …
With the eternal ellipsis indicating that something is missing …
“Depending on their context and placement in a sentence, ellipses can indicate an unfinished thought, a leading statement, a slight pause, an echoing voice, or a nervous or awkward silence.”
I like the idea of winter beginning with an ellipsis …
So much mystery, so much possibility, so much left out, so much left to come …
So much left …
“An ellipsis may also imply an unstated alternative indicated by context.”
I also like the idea of winter beginning in bright bombast, in the cacophonous tumult and zany, electrified excitement of the holidays. Christmas!! New Year’s!!! And then the inevitable letdown and arrival of the doldrums … that’s what I truly seek this season.
The emptiness.
The aloneness.
When the noise is done, when the parties are over, when the resuming of school and work and life quickly renders this next week or two obsolete and soon forgotten, I will embrace the quiet and the stillness.
The dark night of winter descends – may it also be a cloak, wherein we find healing and growth. I don’t want to pretend the pain away, I want to be fully present, to go through all of the hurt and ache of a winter, the prick of an icy wind, the sting of a frigid morning, the deluge of a winter snowstorm. But I want to do it with a cloak, or at the very least a veil. We all need a little bit of protection, no matter how strong or bullish we might appear.
“The sign of ellipsis can function as a floor holding device, and signal that more is to come …”
