Letter from Glasgow: Looking Out

It’s the last day of January. The low red light outside meets the red sap rising inside, in the reeds and branches on patches of unbuilt ground in this city. Red is for readiness. The year is about to kick into place and it is time to wake up. It would be tempting to stay warm inside, wrapped in the dark, looking in, but it is a swift stride from spring to autumn, the time when the lights inside go on again, to pattern the dark. It is as well to wake up now, look out, reach out for whatever presents itself in daylight. And the possibility that this might not be the same thing, that things might be said differently, heard new, seen, as if for the first time, if we allow them.

First published in January 2023