What are some of the things that make you happy these days, Morry?
Even now, despite all that weighs on me, there are yet a few things. Trifling things, they ward away the staining-ink in my thoughts for a time. It’s the simple things, isn’t it, that always seem to persist that way; a scent, a texture, a certain quality of light. A little comfort, a moment’s contentment, may be all the joy that can reliably be wrung from the world some days, but it is still something.
Warm furs and sweet, mulled wine are a pleasure, of course. A crackling, murmuring fire, too, aromatic with birch or oak, or with a walnut-shell of peat tossed to its golden heart. Brisk wind and a swift, spirited steed to carry me, the wild vigour of the hunt and course, my pulse in the drum of hooves on soil. The smell of beeswax candles and warm, well-tended leather, the clean sharpness of good juniper liquor. Collecting herbs and the like for the kitchen is always soothing, as is fishing; you can do both at once, if you’ve a decent net and a sharp ear. Rolling spice and split reeds into ka'almes incense, on my knees before the altar and the ounihm, a ritual worktable built like a long, low bench; the dull ache it breeds in my lower back somehow cheers me, reminds me of the many lines of incense drying on their racks. Simply knowing that I have my own ounihm is enough, some days, to make me smile.
I have my hives waiting for me, far to the south, filled with industry and sound and warmth. I have my books, a hoarded treasure worth more to me than all the many things I traded for them. I have a sunlit balcony that is not too unlike the rooftop gardens I grew up with; there may still be enough breath left in the autumn’s dying corpse to lend me one more warm midday, watching over the Ilinalta’s waters, eye to eye with the falcon and the last of the songbirds.
I really must return, as soon as I am able. It already seems so long since I left. It will be better, this time.
