And just like that the shortest day is here and my inner pagan skips and jumps.
I am a closet minor melancholic from the minute the Summer Solstice brings the longest day. Shortening days and looking towards the gloom of winter from the 22 of June is my secret USP. I keep it well hidden until late November but from then on I grump and moan a bit.
Singapore, Australia and Hong Kong reset me like nothing has ever done before. Long days of sunshine in December perked me up like new batteries in small electrical devices.
Buzzing would be the word. Never have I had so much va-va-voom in December.
Even the adverse events of this week have failed to dim my physical energy. My heart and soul might be mightily bruised and hollowed out, but I have been ready to meet the day at stupid o clock. Thanks to being super charged by the Southern Hemisphere.
And so. As the Northern hemisphere awakes it has gone through the longest night. My shortest day was spent at the speed of a 90 year old visitor. There is much to reccomend about such a speed. Less expectation to achieve everything and just plenty of time just to natter and almost meditatively wrap the small gifts that end up in stockings. Stocking-gift wrapping also gave me the wonderful aroma of beautifully fresh Navel Oranges , which must always be in every stocking. Surely a good reason to just breath deeply and relax.
There are still many dark days to fill with introspection but as the world turns we are looking towards the light now.
There are many more stocking gifts to wrap up but just crossing the winter solstice gives me a lightness of thought.
Time to enjoy the lengthening days and the anticipation of gathering in modified ways for Christmas and the New Year with family and friends. Time to look forward.
This week leading up to the Winter Solstice has always been significant in my life. I don’t suffer from Seasonally Affective Disorder at all, but I have always liked waking up with the sun, and these late wake ups in December and January really don’t suit me at all. I start, mildly, dreading short days and late wake ups as we pass the Summer Solstice and start on the downward slope to shorter days, an utterly futile anxiety which is equally matched for over-reaction by my mental joy when December 21 St is past. Despite the reality of many more short days to be endured in January and February.
Quite by chance, earlier this week, I found a blocked up window that nicely illustrates my negativity towards this time of year.
Then again, quite by chance, I discovered another name for the Winter Solstice. Hiburnal Solstice. I think I may be a mental hibernator. During these short dark days I have a favourite coat. It was already old when I bought it on EBay more than 20 years ago. It is much older than me and is a 1940’s shawl collar, fake fur Jacket. It is a weighty beast and tends to only be worn in the dark days of December and January. The jacket tends to live in the car and hides unwrapped Christmas gifts or comforts sleepy passengers who need to snooze on long dark journeys. I suspect the jacket is my personal hibernation. A garment very much with a specific season of wear and a garment that now holds 20 years of my winter history, a history that is known to me. But beyond that my coat has had another life, maybe as much as 60 years of keeping a different woman or women warm in the darkest and coldest of times.
Whoever the women have been it is obvious that it has only ever been relatively infrequently worn. Maybe it has always been a hibernation coat. Worn only in the darkest of months, a garment that offers a form of hibernation until the days get brighter.
Summer solstice, the longest day in the Northern Hemisphere has been rather a damp squib. ( A squib is a small firework, a damp one does not go off. Thus a damp squib of a day fails to live up to expectation.) The dawn swim occurred with a backdrop of gently changing greys and raindrops landing on our salty faces. The Bobbers, of course, were a brightly coloured pod of swimmers all there to be in the water at sunrise to support the three Bobbers who were in the water to swim a kilometre for a local charity. Dry land supporters were also there. Visible sunrise, or not, the elite Bobbers raised just over £800 for local charity Barefoot Project.
The gap between sunrise and sunset continued to be a damp and grey day but a solstice is a solstice and Bobbers who could not make the early morning dip commited to swimming at sunset.
The sun turned up just in time to set, like a friend who makes it to an agreed meeting five minutes before everyone else has to leave. Not one to just slip in quietly the sun was spectacular.
Even blessing the Madonna with a large coffee cup with some rainbow bathing, what a difference 16 hours makes!
Eventually only two Bobbers made both a sunrise and sunset swim.
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