It felt like I was doing something wrong being up that early on a Saturday morning.
The roads were nearly empty, the morning cool enough to notice after months of summer. Saturday mornings, especially early ones, are supposed to be slow. Coffee. Sleeping in. Nowhere to be for at least another hour or two.
And yet, there I was, driving into town. Not for work. Not to explore some hidden South Carolina gem. I didn’t need to be anywhere in particular. I just wanted to slip away and see what treasures I could find.
The past few months had moved quickly, one thing happening before there was much time to make sense of the last. More than one part of my life had been recently shaken up. Things I had grown accustomed to suddenly looked different.
Change is inevitable. Enough of it at once, though, and the body begins to notice.
There were other things. Smaller things. The ordinary complications of being alive, hardly worth mentioning, except that they had accumulated.
I am an extroverted introvert. But constant availability has a cost.
For months, it seemed there was always someone around. Someone talking. Someone asking a question. Someone needing an answer. Someone wanting something.
Even good company had begun to feel like noise.
I needed seclusion. I needed peace and quiet.
And suddenly, after months of noise, I had it.
By the time I headed home, there were Halloween decorations in the car. Jack-o’-lanterns, ghosts, and goblins.
Something felt almost frivolous about buying them when so much lately had felt consequential. Maybe that was why I did it. I was tired of consequence.
Back home, a fall ambiance played on the television. Leaves fell endlessly across the screen while spooky music filled the room. It was artificial autumn, certainly, but I needed it. Outside, September in South Carolina had not yet received the message.
Before anything else, a blue candle was lit.
Candle magic has always been somewhere in my DNA. There are no burning bay leaves or intentions spoken over a flame, although I have a great deal of respect for those who practice that way. Mine, if you can call it a practice, is considerably simpler.
Light the candle and let it charge the room.
Blue is for calm. For intuition. For spiritual depth. A color meant to quiet things, which was exactly what the afternoon called for.
Later came green.
Green evokes abundance in earthly things. Prosperity. Good luck. Growth. The hope of having enough.
Fresh sheets went on the bed, followed by a new duvet. Jack-o’-lanterns and ghosts found places around the house. Slowly, the rooms began to come together and feel different.
There is something peculiar about being alone in a house you have spent months mostly passing through. You begin noticing things again. The books beside the chair. The way a room looks when the lamps are on instead of the overhead lights.
For months, my body had been on alert. Reacting to changes. To disappointment. To grief. To whatever came next.
That day, nothing came next.
I hadn’t experienced that quiet in so long, and by evening, the house looked and felt like me again. Jack-o’-lanterns. Ghosts. Fresh sheets. Candlelight.
And, for the first time in a long while, I felt like myself.
Michael Tolbert 