I’ve never been convinced about the whole Solstice thing — anytime I’ve ever heard folks rejoice because we’re supposedly moving back toward the light, I can’t help remembering January. February. Those are some really dark months to get through.
But. . .
I will finish marking today, collate grades (lots of arithmetic!), and then transfer the marks digitally so that the term is truly done.
I went to yoga this morning, and I recognized how tightly marking, knitting, sitting, and being ill for ten days had wound my muscles. Lovely, lovely, lovely Shavasana. . .
I got an iPhone e-mail from my sister in response to one I’d sent the Listserv that is my huge extended family. I’d conveyed my regrets that we wouldn’t be able to join my siblings and their families at the Christmas Eve potluck one of my sisters hosts every year — the 15 or 20 nieces and nephews who show up usually offer some kind of musical and dramatic performance, there’s a gift exchange, lots of yummy food, and the once or twice we’ve managed to attend it’s been wonderful.
But, as I wrote them all, we’d be sticking with our own small crew, and exchanging the joys of a big crowd for the wonders of a few very small people.
And my baby sister (she’s 15 years younger than I am, so although she’s got four kids of her own, she’ll always be baby to me) wrote back:
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Right way to rub it in that you have the little people. As if u even need food…. Isn’t she cute? And right? At any rate, she made me laugh! So maybe we are heading back into the light. . . if we know how to look for it, I suspect we’ll find it. As yesterday afternoon, when I looked out the window to catch this view (we face East, by the way, so this is an odd meteorological thing that happens from time to time, a reflection of the sunset, rather than the sunset itself). Getting work finished. Yoga. Love and humour from siblings. Tiny new people. Unexpected beauty in the world around us. . . .All of this, and more, I hope you find your own version of, to bring you light. Happy Solstice! |
'Tiny new people"… and those you have loved forever. There is nothing better, nothing else. Merry Christmas, ma!
You've got it! "nothing better, nothing else" — Merry Christmas to you as well!
Here's to a done term!
Merry Christmas Mater, to you and all of your tiny and larger loved ones.
and Merry Christmas to you too, Susan, with one whole term of grad school behind you!
Thanks for all the catch-up comments which I enjoyed but probably won't find time to comment on individually.
Light comes in all forms, it would seem 🙂 (And that photo is awesome.)
It really does — the trick seems to be in noticing the illumination. . .
Beautiful.
😉
Beautiful light. I'm leaving my marking till the New Year, though I think that might be a mistake! Happy Christmas!
Ah, we don't have that option, which is probably just as well. Ours have to be uploaded by Christmas Eve, which sounds so horridly Dickensian that I always hurry to get mine in earlier.
Merry Christmas to you too!
How wonderfully bright it is over there – and no snow!
Have a wonderful, well-earned Christmas with the holidays!!!
We had snow, but it's all washed away. Many are hoping for a white Christmas, but I'll admit I'm happier if it stays green.
I hope you have a lovely Christmas — I'm sure yours will be quite White!!
Those tiny new people – what a big attraction they are. We will be without this year. The youngest in the house on Christmas Eve will be 25, and we need a 'youngest' to lay the child in the creche. Ah well, we'll make the best of what we have and laugh at our traditions that overtake even common sense/reality!
Enjoy those little ones!
It's new territory, this, isn't it? Ours, luckily, are all close enough that we can get together, but we adapt ourselves to the younger generation's plans — and they're adapting to a whole other set of realities, including in-laws, and their own vision of traditions they want to build for their children, drawing from their own and their partners' past. It's interesting to watch and be part of, even if sometimes we're quite conscious of just how much our own traditions are being shifted. Merry Christmas!
Our two little ones add so much brightness to our lives everyday, and even more so at Christmas. I'm so glad we live close to them. Enjoy your tinies.
Yesterday was bright and beautiful here, a lovely harbinger of brighter days to come, although, as you've said, there's still January, and February, which I think the gloomiest month of the year.
Merry Christmas, Mater!
Isn't it wonderful having our grandchildren close? I feel very blessed!
best of the holiday to you, mater .. sounds like your days will be filled with love, joy, brightness and good food ..
merry christmas to all ..
And the same to you, Jane — maybe we'll see you on the island later this week . . . Nola will be visiting. .