The times when I've had the thought 'oh, I need to write my December prelude' did not coincide with the times when I felt like I had the time to sit down and write it, and the days seem to pass so quickly these days. Sometimes I wonder if that really is just a product of getting older. I remember, as a kid, how the time between December 1st and Christmas felt impossibly long, how having one or two weeks off for winter break felt like an age, how the duration of a summer break felt like eternity. Now? Summer feels like yesterday, Christmas seems imminent, and I'm already wondering what the plan is for New Year's.
Winter has arrived. We had a weeklong stretch where it seemed like every day was threatening snow, and where I am, at least, it mostly failed to deliver, except for one evening. I had gone out to meet up with a friend I hadn't seen since prior to the pandemic, and all the while we were hanging out I kept glancing out the window and wondering why the sky seemed so light so late at night. As it turns out, the city was coated in a thin blanket of wet snow. Everything was still and quiet and beautiful, and I knew with a certainty that it would all be gone by the morning.
Fall is the season of the ephemeral, but winter holds its fleeting moments as well; fresh-fallen snow does not remain fresh for long. And I've been thinking of those ephemeral moments a lot recently as I've been spending more time than is probably reasonable playing Splatoon 3. Unlike most online multiplayer games, the Splatoon series does not feature any form of in-game chat, so if you choose to join a team with random players, you have very limited means of communicating with them, and no way to rejoin them if you are separated. Every now and then you are paired with a team that you really enjoy, whether because you play well together or simply because you have just shared some memorable moments with them. And then they are gone.
It's sad, of course, but there's something beautiful there as well. You are joining a team with people you will likely never meet outside of this context, and working together with them, and then going your separate ways. Some you will remember, some you will forget, but a community is built of so much more than the people you will see again.
The year is winding down. I will try to post my media list at some point, and I will of course do my usual year in review and New Year's meditation, and then . . . well, we'll see. I have something resembling a plan, but I've always been hesitant to voice plans out loud.
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