Darkness Creeping

Hi and happy almost Halloween!

Below is a post all about rodents and seasonal depression (so fun!), but first I have a bit of light, fun, happy news to share.

The children’s literature magazine I publish, Little Thoughts Press, recently received this incredibly lovely write-up from The Broken Spine. I am so proud of this magazine and I have put so much of my heart and my energy into it over the last four years, and it feels so affirming and wonderful to have it recognized and celebrated in this way.

Our next issue, due out in December, is Better Together and it’s a collection of poetry, prose and artwork by both adult and youth writers and artists celebrating community and collective action. If you have young kids and are looking for ways to get them interested and invested in building community and providing support and care for others, consider signing up for an annual subscription through our ko-fi memberships (Ponderer level and above), and our Better Together issue will be the first of three issues you’ll receive. It would make a great holiday gift for young readers!

As always, thanks for reading and for all of your support!

Darkness Creeping

When I was little, our house was infested with roof rats. I would lay awake at night listening to their wanderings.

I always tried to fall asleep before their nightly journeys began, but I think the effort to avoid them only made me more attuned to their arrival. I would hear a little scritch-scratch behind the wall and my nervous system would flare, my whole body on alert, waiting for the next sound. The noises would come, slow enough at first that I could almost convince myself that I was imagining it, but then faster and faster until suddenly it felt like the whole wall beside my bed was pulsing with the sound of rats racing back and forth, trying to escape.

Every fall, our current house gets visited by field mice. We’ll be sitting watching TV when suddenly a small shadow will go darting past the periphery of our vision. It is incredible the amount of noise a single small mouse can make when it dashes behind the stove.

At first the sightings are few and far between, but as the nights grow colder and evening arrives earlier and earlier, the mice increasingly make their presence known.

I do not care for them. I do not care for the way rodents, like a black despair, slowly sneak their way into my life until suddenly I am seeing and hearing them everywhere, whether or not they’re actually there.

Lately, I have taken to pressing my face into my husband’s chest at around 6:30 every evening and letting the full weight of my body collapse into his standing frame such that he has to step one foot back to steady himself to keep us both from falling over. Without his stability, we would both crash to the ground at this time of year.

This weekend, the clocks will fall back and all hell will break loose in my house. Dogs and children thrown into chaos with no clue of the appropriate hour to feel hungry or sleepy. Mice skittering across the kitchen floor while I’m trying to cook dinner. The sky outside the kitchen window black as night and still so much of the day to go.

For weeks, my depression has been gently scratching at the walls of my being, letting me know it’s coming. The sound of it slowly building in the cavities of my body, a shadow flitting back and forth through my mind. Like the end of Daylight Savings, it will suddenly arrive, the feeling of night, of darkness, come too soon. A yearly ritual, a lifelong refrain: the monster beside my ear, ignoring my many sacrifices, coming to devour me.

A few bits of lightness if, like me, you’re in need of a little uplift this time of year:

The Road to Tender Hearts is surprisingly fun and humorous for a book that starts with a murder/suicide.

A friend recently asked me what my karaoke song is and after explaining that I would never publicly torture people by making them listen to me sing, I offered up a couple of options before realizing that the answer is unequivocally “Portions for Foxes” by Rilo Kiley. Even better than singing this in front of people is to sing it really loudly alone in your kitchen while you wash dishes. Highly recommend.

We checked out the picture book Windows on a recent library visit and it is everything that is special and charming about this time of year when night arrives early and everyone’s house turns into warm, glowy snapshots of their private lives. Instead of hanging around feeling sad in my mouse-infested house, I’m going to start doing more evening walks where I go looking for cats and dogs and little surprises in people’s windows.

The baseball playoffs have been so great this year. We promised our son that if the World Series goes to Game 7, he can stay up to watch it since it will be on a weekend. In the meantime, he’s been allowed to watch the first inning of each game and then in the morning he wakes up and watches the highlights. Apparently, a bunch of his friends do this same thing and then they talk about the game at recess and lunch, and I just love this. I think it is so sweet and charming. I am constantly surprised and delighted by how fun this stage of parenting is. These whole little people who aren’t old enough to stay up for the games but know that they are experiencing something special to be able to see Shohei Ohtani play like he’s been playing but still have it be just as likely that the Blue Jays will win the whole thing. It’s so great.

You can find more of my writing & contact information at clairemtaylor.com. If you’d like to further support my work, please consider purchasing one of my books, or a copy of Little Thoughts Press. I also have a ko-fi page.