Today I'm at home, awaiting a new dishwasher that needs to be delivered and installed during working hours, deeply enjoying the quiet of the house and finding that the time to reflect is the best gift of all.
Normally, my alarm goes off around 5am and I take half hour to encourage my body to wake up (which it is loathe to do - I have to build in a half hour of quiet because I am NOT a "bound out of bed" person), then a half hour to write my morning pages (thank you, Julia Cameron and The Artist's Way) before REALLY rushing to pack my lunch, shower and dress, and get out the door so that I can arrive to work by 7am. I hit the ground running when I get to school, and I don't even take a breath until 7th period - my only prep period - because I work through lunch, answering Teams chats and email as I eat my soup or salad at my desk. There is a brief reprieve in 7th period to try to get a couple of tasks done, and then the kids show up again at 3pm for tutorial, often not clearing out the classroom until 4pm. Only then can I do my "real" work of grading, planning, etc... and I am so exhausted that my brain does not want to comply.
On my good days, I work until 5:30 or 6:30, or I am able to take some work home and do it for an hour or two. On my bad days I practically whimper as I walk to my car, and feel incredibly grateful to live alone so that nobody will see me fall into the sofa with something probably-not-healthy for dinner before going to bed.
It's not sustainable, and I do not approve of this way of living. I'm constantly trying to do better, and it's hit and miss.
But it's Winter Solstice season, the darkest part of the year, and as the days get shorter and the nights get deeper, I'm asking myself to go deeper, too.
Deep breaths.
Deep thoughts.
Deeper well (thanks, Kacey Musgraves).
Some seasons are for frolicking in the fields, or planting, or harvesting... but in my mind, winter's darkness is a place for quiet. It's a chance to sit in those long nights, enjoying candlelight (which will have to suffice for a fireplace, which my 1923 house does not have... how do I not have a fireplace?!) and hot tea, reading and writing, crochet or other crafty endeavors. It's a season of soups and roasted vegetables... quiet, unfussy food that still has deep nourishment.
(Tonight's soup: curried butternut squash, made with coconut milk and finished with chili crisp. Simple doesn't mean boring.)
This year I'm really embracing the solstice: looking to nature's rhythms to guide me through the darkness. Usually I decorate my house in traditional (Dickensian?) themes, lots of red bows and red and green tartan, bringing out the "good" dishes with the gold rims, pretending I'm in Downton Abbey or something.
Not this year. This year I gathered fallen branches of cedar and fir in the park, and hung them around the dining room light. I laid out white crystals - druzy, lots of selenite, and one lovely and large quartz agate. I put the cheery red pillowcase covers on the family room sofas downstairs, and I put the snow globe and nutcrackers down there too, because upstairs I wanted to think about snow, forests, ice, the night sky. We have our traditional tree with all of the memory ornaments - souvenirs from vacations, ornaments received as gifts, ornaments purchased to commemorate important events like births, graduations, and such... but this year, I gently put away the angel and replaced it with a star. I'm looking to nature.
How does one live in the modern world, with corrupt politicians and starving children in Gaza and 5am alarms and broken dishwashers and aging bodies... and find joy, peace, rest, nourishment? And how dare I put "broken dishwashers" on the same line as children in war zones?
I'm taking my cues from nature.
The sky is dark, but it's filled with stars, even when we can't see them behind the clouds.
It's okay to slow down, like the trees do, bare branches quiet against a gray sky.
It's a good idea to have a few extra pounds to make it through the cold season.
And the waves go in, and out; in, and out ... just as they do all year. The crows still gather, and the squirrels still scamper, but the chickens aren't laying like they did in summer, and the grass isn't growing, and everything is gently fluttering but not surging.
I had a professor who talked about the fallow field: a time when a writer needed to let things sit, just like a field in winter, because that time is not wasted, it is a replenishing of the soil, a preparation for planting and harvest, not wasted time.
It's okay to go inside, to curl up with a book, to snuggle into the sofa cushions with a handmade blanket keeping one cozy. There is value in that, too.
Somehow, I need to figure out how to be cozy and still, while still living in the modern world. There is a big difference between the quiet of a good book and a cup of tea, and the quiet of convenience foods in front of the television. The glow of a candle nourishes in the way that the phone screen cannot. And bodies need to move in order to be well, even if they don't want to move at full pace. And the students must be taught, and the papers graded, and the laundry done... despite that natural pull towards stillness.
I think I might need to seek stillness in other places. Farther away from the city, more time under the night sky. Less time on pavement, more time on the soft trails of the park. Fewer large gatherings, and more small cozy ones.
I may not want to rush around at a madcap pace, but I can still my mind and get words on paper; I can gently tend to my home on indoor projects, small things that improve my life. I am certainly enjoying the decor that Tessa and I set up on the day after Thanksgiving. I'm trying to live with the season, embracing soft sweaters and warm coats, wool hats and socks, and leather gloves.
As it turns out, I don't have any of the answers. I think if I pay enough attention, nature might tell me some things... but that's all I know.
It's almost solstice, and the days are getting darker and darker. We decorate the house with lights to remind us of the return of the light; we bring in evergreen to remind us of that evergreen's life. We humans don't hibernate, but it's a chance to remember to slow down, to soak up the quiet air.
My desk faces a window into the backyard, plants on the windowsill between me and outside. The dogwood is completely bare of leaves; the styrax bare of leaves but covered in dangling seeds (fruit? nuts? what are those); the maple is still a blaze of burnt yellow-orange and brown leaves. The sky is thick, low, and gray, ever so still, and I don't see birds. I'm grateful for the stillness, letting my mind sink into stillness, too, no music playing, no buzz of activity today. Fallow.
Tomorrow the alarm will go off far too early, and the day will be filled with the joyful chaos of students, but somehow I'm going to try to keep this stillness within me, to embrace the fallow season, even as I look foward to the return of the light. There is deep beauty in the solstice season, deep rich evergreen hues; crisp white frost; blue and white mountains over the Sound. I'll keep looking for the light, within and without, taking comfort in knowing that it will return.
It feels good to pause.
