midnight runs

The dark nights have come to San Miniato once more. Sometimes when I wander the empty streets, I can hear an howl hooting. Is it calling my name, I wonder, like in the famous novel by Margaret Craven.  I have only ever seen one owl in this area and it was a beautiful white one. It gleamed like fresh snow on a branch. 

But that was a few years ago.

Sometimes I dream that I go running in the night. Like at 3 a.m. in the morning, I get up from my bed and I disappear. I go different places. Sometimes to cities or remote stretches of road that would scare me if they were real. And then, sometimes I wonder, when I have woken, whether it was real after all. 

Winter feels like a weighted blanket this year. But much colder, of course.