Thursday, December 21, 2006

Happy Solstice


With the official first day of winter (also known as Solstice), we cross over to having our daylight hours beginning to increase again instead of continuing to get shorter. The extra few minutes of sunshine won't really be noticeable for a while, but just knowing they are there gives me hope for tulips and daffodils and that bright green of brand new leaves popping out on trees. Granted, for those of us in the northland springtime is still months away. But it doesn't seem that long ago I was raking leaves and carving pumpkins. Now I'm sprinkling salt on sidewalks and navigating ice. Soon enough I'll be tilling the garden and beginning the whole cycle over again.

So as the season of Saturnalia comes and goes, I'm reflecting on how it feels as if we are living in accelerated times. Weeks morph into months into years and holy cow, where does the time go? Seasons spill into one another faster and faster. Was it really so long ago we watched the world go into wacko phobia over Y2K? Now we are already six years into this brand new century. Has it been what you expected?

Perceptions of time are fickle things...

As for me, after months of frantic Type A over-scheduling, I am very much looking forward to have the next week to do pretty much what I want. I plan to lie in a lavender bubble bath reading my printed out chapters of The Promised King, to put together a couple jigsaw puzzles, and take several well deserved naps. I may bundle up and go do a bit of geocaching. With the new year I am sure I will find plenty of new "to do" lists and make commitments for all manner of activities. But for now...I will gaze at seed catalogs and sort through a closet or two NOT in effort to get it all tidy, but rather to just enjoy the pile of old letters, concert ticket stubs, travel maps and other junk I have stashed there. I'm officially off duty for being busy and responsible for the next little while. It's time for me to stretch out and relax.

3 comments:

Marie said...

It looks like our posting's in sync today, though you're less moody than I am. I'll attribute it to the PMS. I'm glad to know that someone besides me starts thinking of the seed catalogs on Dec 21.

Don Norton, one of my English professors at BYU, said that he firmly believed that it was not just a perception that time went faster as we age -- he thought that we really do slip into a different level of existence where time really is sped up. I thought he was a crazy old codger when he said that, but find I'm agreeing with him more and more. Whatever's going on, it's spooky. 2007, you say?? That's ridiculous. It can't be 2007. That would mean I'm turning.....oh dear.

Kelly Sedinger said...

Heavens, you printed it out? I hope you like it, then! At least reading it on screen, you're not out the paper if you decide that it stinks!

Let me know!

Belladonna said...

Marie - YES, I do think that we are living in accelerated times. More on that later.

Jaquandor...yep, enjoying my soggy pages very much. I stare at a computer screen far too much for my job to ever turn to it for pleasure reading of fiction. So I just print it all out and let myself get lots in the fictional world in more comfortable settings.

I have been known to read in the tub till I'm positively pruney.

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