we take the long way.
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Dear ones,
On the morning of solstice P and I start the day with a walk to our lake. I say ‘our’ the way I might say ‘our neighbor’, not because of possession or ownership but because of relationship, an acknowledgement of a tether. We notice, this morning in particular, that the birds and squirrels are more boisterous than usual. “They celebrated the solstice before we did,” P notes. “They absolutely did,” I agree while a red-tailed woodpecker darts past to join his friend on a tree that seems as if it’s growing sideways, hovering above the half-frozen waters.
This solstice day we treat as a holiday, we don’t hurry our walk the way we do other mornings when P rushes off to compost food scraps and I rush off to zoom meetings or client calls. Today, we take the long way.
The December weeks leading up to solstice felt like a year’s worth of activities and emotions. There was travel and reunions, a wedding and a memorial; there was a vigil in support of sex workers that included both a moving a capella chorus of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah" and also Evangelicals telling us we were on a path to hell. There was cozy Christmas movie viewing and the inevitable stress of last-minute purchases. I had an instructor training, there were multiple difficult conversations, and a family member’s harrowing health emergency. Everyone was sick one week or the other. I baked three batches of cookies, but only two were worth sharing. I held back tears sometimes, sobbed others. I laughed, felt peace. This isn’t surprising to me, all this in December; this year has been like this, full and overflowing even when from the outside it seems like going through the motions.
So the squirrels and the birds celebrated, and I did too, despite it all. The squirrels and the birds know the light is returning but that the winter has only just begun. They know to hold the two; food scarcity accompanies a shorter night, and our more-than-human friends remind us both things can be true at once.
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