Nearing the solstice

When I was a kid I always felt a little bit hoodwinked once the dazzle of the holidays had passed and I realized to my horror that the bulk of winter stretched ahead of me, bleak and cold and forbidding, uninterrupted until Spring break. Yech! And midwest winters could be depressing, especially to a kid. Rare it was to have a really swell blizzard. Instead you got crusty, dirty, left-over snow corroding the streets, most often souped up into a goopy mess right where you want to step. Oh woe! Oh endless agony! What a tremendous let down after the build up of ever more enticing holidays and delights from September through December - the heady rush of going back to school, leaves changing, football, Halloween, that first nip in the air, sweater weather, Thanksgiving, food, food, food, my birthday (December 2nd), Christmas! It was all grand! And in my mind's eye, Christmas was the height of winter, life was one big shake up winter scene globe with snow flurries and caroling. It felt like such a gyp when I realized that the winter solstice officially marking the end of autumn and the beginning of winter occured 3 days before Christmas. We weren't any where near the middle or height of winter, we'd just taken a few baby steps in. Sigh.

Maybe that kid realization was the first time I let in the bittersweetness of the season that I cherish so much now. I love both the joy and the sadness of the season, the beginning and ending all at once, a full embrace of both. I'm drawn to Christmas Carols like "O Come, O Come Emmanuel" and "Lo, How A Rose E'er Blooming" that have such a sweet, stark, rich sadness to them. I don't know where all this is leading, but that's how I feel.

It's cold here in Vermont, about 10 right now, dropped to 12 below earlier in the week, our very own brand of mercury in retrograde. We're about to embark on some holiday traveling, putting our animals in the care of a friend. I miss being away from them all, they enlarge my life. I guess if I were hard pressed it would be the cats I miss the most. Of course we're around them the most. They sleep with us, they frolic and tease and play and warm our laps. They're my constant teachers. Lessons in taking care of something else, in being present, in how to sleep and nap like an artist, in talking in another (animal) language, in intuition. But the birds are a close second. I never thought I would appreciate them so much, but I do.

The snowfalls have been gentle and just magnificent. Not a lot of depth yet, you can still see the meadow grass sticking through like a toe-headed giant's unkempt hair. The fir trees, though, look as if a professional flocker has come in from New York to design the forest scenes. I admire the trees during my daily walk. I try as best I can take in 4 or 5 miles a day, fine with 2 if time is crunched. I take a book along and a legal pad - I love to read and write when I walk - but I let at least half of the walk be about simply letting it all in. And the forest and the skies and the way always look just a little bit different every day.

Our house is pretty cozy and Christmasy. No tree, but electric sconces in every window, a wreath on our front door and another much larger one on the side of our new gambrel roof, both wreathes constructed by us from boughs of various firs and pines and holly on our property. Most often there's Christmas music going on inside from CD's we've collected over the years and which are forbidden to be played until the day after Thanksgiving. One old cassette of the Robert Shaw Chorale I've carried around with me since the 1970's I now have to play on a dilapidated Radio Shack tape recorder. (This is the only recording I have of "O Come, O Come Emanuel.") All these old favorites remind me of the record collections Goodrich and Goodyear would come out with every year in the 60's and which we'd play on the stereo console in our living room. So weird thinking that the '60's are olden times now. I just watched "Charlie Brown Christmas" last night and remember watching it when it premiered in 1965 at a Methodist Youth Church group meeting. Oh, how times have changed. Now wait a minute, I guess we do have a tree. I put lights on one of our fir trees in back. The lights are times to pop on around 4 pm every day and stay illuminated until midnight. I love coming home down our infrequently traveled road and seeing the tree's light from way down the road like a welcoming beacon, a multi-colored lighthouse on land. When I decorated it the task took much longer than I had estimated and I toiled well into the night. Since the tree is directly down from their house and pen, the geese had quite a lot of comments along the way, some brays and calls, but mostly murmurs amongst themselves. I choose to take their murmurings as appreciative clucks.

No great earth shattering discoveries or events to recount. Just a winter's catch-up. We are actually in mercury retrograde through the 30th if you didn't know, and being a skeptical believer in just about everything, I'll pass on a few tidbits. This is not the best of times to sign contracts or begin new ventures, more a time to go back over old business, finish projects begun, put things in order, clean up files. Very aprospos for this time of year, I think. It's not the greatest time to travel, so expect delays, give yourself time, don't rush. It's a fantastic time to be in touch with friends, reconnect, reach out. Expect communication breakdowns, back up computers. Be grateful. Be appreciative. Be patient. (Those last three weren't exactly associated with mercury in retrograde; I just tossed them in for good measure.) Have a great full moon - the light at night here is eeriely beautiful - and know that the lunar eclipse may just zap you a bit tomorrow. Have a wonderful solstice all you Christians, pagans, Islamists, Hindis, Buddhists, agnostics, atheists, what-have-yous. Be kind, be gentle, have a splendid winter.

Joy to the World!!