is this my beautiful house? is this my beautiful wife?
TOPICAL: this is part of The Cycle of the Seasons series
I’m surprised by how far along we are. Three-quarters of twelve days, all the minutes and hours, all behind us in linear time. It doesn’t get easier, though, the closer we get to twelve. It’ll be a relief to have finished when we get there, but first, we have to get there.
Today was busy and difficult and I’m experiencing a mood dip, probably because of *gestures at everything* and also, it was too warm in my room last night and I didn’t sleep very well at all. The temperature in my state has been known to be fucking ridiculous — start the day dressed for cold weather, and by evening you might be out on the deck in shorts, breathing humidity after a thunderstorm that lingered instead of clearing the air. But it’s getting more ridiculous, more off-balance, because of how the climate is changing the weather patterns here. The summers are much hotter, the winters a lot colder, and the weather itself bounces back and forth so much it literally gives me a headache because the barometric pressure plus whatever flora thaws and refreezes and thaws again, plays havoc and my confused body releases a whole bunch of histamine, just in case.
The cycle of the seasons is different in here than out there. In here, it’s easier to mark the time and shift with the day length and the time of the moon. In here, it’s easy to forget that we are protected from a lot of the chaos out there.
I don’t celebrate New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day any more, not because I’m personally boycotting them, but because my new year starts after the last harvest festival at Samhain. My new year starts after the harvest has been shared, measured, and stored, the fields now resting, the animals finding warm deep places to sleep until the spring. My new year starts with the stories of our ancestors told by lamplight. My new year starts with a new cycle of living in close quarters with those I love the most. We learn some of the hardest lessons about ourselves and how we deal with stress in the early part of our year. It reminds us that we are woven together, whether by chance or by choice, and things are all the easier if we can learn to live in harmony.
Tonight I am tired because the day felt very long. I am yawning but not ready for bedtime quite yet. I’m still working on the last bottle of water I filled for today. I’ve crossed off the things we did and I checked all the little boxes, clearing my virtual desk in preparation for tomorrow’s work. I am hoping that everyone in our household can sleep a good restful sleep tonight. I am hoping that I wake up with no migraine tomorrow, in spite of the wackypants weather that’s forecast.
I wish for you what I wish for myself: time in which you do not remember to worry.
— Nix
Our days traditionally begin at sunset. The darkness is all around us but we are safe here together inside these walls that we have fortified with love and with sacrifice.
featured image is a photo by Andrew Ridley on Unsplash
