The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/ancestors/page/3)
It’s easy to disregard the dead. They don’t have the ability to move you along if you’re loitering where you aren’t wanted. They have no control their own physical bodies any longer, nor over the space where they are interred. They can’t opt out of your pictures. They can’t tell you no.
Over the last few months, I have been exploring definitions of what makes a hard winter. How do I define that experience? Sometimes I stayed awake at night, turning thoughts in my head, worrying at this topic like a child poking a loose tooth with her tongue.
Correspondent Sean McShee describes the research connecting the domestication of horses to the spread of languages.
My father began asking me to go home sometime in August. He started with subtle hints – the aroma of freshly brewed coffee, random old music, and snapshots of shared memories. But I should mention that no embodied being in my home drinks coffee, and my dad left this realm 16 years ago.
Three things mark this season of death and remembrance for me: the severe drop in temperatures; the death anniversaries of many in my family, most specifically my parents; and the perceived closeness of the ancestors as the veils thin.