December 20, 2008
Solstice Eve. Tomorrow the light starts to return. Today, a short day, will be a time for contemplation, review, imagination, dreaming. On these dark mornings I lie in bed, watching, watching, watching the light come up over the mountains. One year I studied the light here, comparing it to the light in Vermont (my sister's project) and found that, though the days will be getting lighter, the increase will happen in the afternoons for awhile, not in the mornings. Still, more light is on the way. Tomorrow. Just in time.
Yesterday we had a big, sudden rain storm here. The sky blackened but the sun was with us too. From my desk I watched the thick clouds roar over Beaucatcher Mountain, watched the rain pelt the office window right next to me. Adam, up in the shop, paged me. "Grab your camera and come up here!" he said, "there's a gigantic rainbow!" Indeed there was. Arching over Town Mountain and reaching all the way to Memorial Stadium, it was, actually, a double rainbow. The lower one organized in the "ROYGIBV" order was mirrored by the upper rainbow, a backwards, fainter arch. Best of all, everyone here had stopped working. Our entire crew was lined up in our café or in the front of the kitchen, silently staring. Outside, everyone in every shop had stopped working too. People, shopkeepers and workers and customers just stood out on the sidewalks staring, breathing, smiling.
It was a moment of peace and magic.
We've had warm temperatures around here this week. Everywhere else in the country seems to be in mid-winter. Hail, snow, rain, drama. I get most of my weather information from watching the tv screen in the bank when I got to do our daily business. 9" - 11" of snow in Minneapolis - with 4' drifts! Unimaginable. I, in a t-shirt, smile.
It IS a bit odd to be so warm so close to Christmas, I guess, though I'll take it! Each day feels like a treasure. Time, looked at this way, slows nicely. This week, after all, there has been a noticeable uptick in pace around here. After putting the whole thing off, people seem, finally, to be in the spirit to shop, cavort, visit, find and give gifts. We've been bustling and I like it. Only a few more days. Only a few more days. I, like you, need to get busy! Craft projects need to get done! Baking, neglected, waits. Yikes!
(We do still have plenty enough last-minute thoughts for you in our shop if you're still looking.)
I'll go see my sisters on Christmas day this year. We'll be working on Christmas Eve and I like to stick around, go sing Christmas Carols and light candles with my friends at Jubilee on Christmas Eve. I'll get up early on Christmas Day and drive to Kentucky for a few days. The baby niece and her older brother will be fun presents for me to see (pictures will follow.)
We've decided to open back up after Christmas. Though we frequently take the week between Christmas and New Year's off, everyone here wants to stay open so we're going to. In my next newsletter I'll give you our New Year's Eve/Day party platter menu. But do keep us in mind for Chris's great breakfasts and the full array of café lunches and no fuss pick-up gourmet foods of all kinds for your dinners next week. We won't be doing our standard dinner to go, but we'll have plenty of cook and weather-inspired possibilities for you.
But back to the light. The light. The return of the light.
One of my guides suggested that just breathing would help. And the directions, specific, say, "Breathe three times, in the nose, out the mouth." In haste, tyring, I gulp once, in and out. Nothing. Then, remembering, a second, slower, nose/mouth breath makes me feel better. Finally, the third, deep, lung-filling, drawn in through now-open nostrils and then, after being savored, out through opened mouth, does the trick.
Breathing. In and out and three times. This works and I remember that the light is coming back and that warmth surrounds me and us, even in the midst of the relentless outer turmoil. Come breathe too. It helps.
Happy Solstice, Hannukah, Christmas.
I'll be in touch next week.
