thank you, corona

it's the winter solstice. the longest, darkest day of the year, in what's been a long, dark year. 2020 has tried to kick our asses. and it has mostly succeeded. but, i’ll admit that as far as i’m concerned, it also has been pretty good to me. and i’ll also admit that it feels a little problematic of me to say that. but, honestly, it has. i started a new job two days before denmark shut down the first time and said that everyone who chould work at home should work at home. i’ll admit that i was a little freaked out on that friday. i had just returned from a long-planned holiday in barcelona that we didn’t cancel. we didn’t know then how bad the virus would become. we had planned the previous october to meet sabin in barcelona and have a family vacation. and we did it. husband did go home early, because it had rained all of february and the water table was high and leaking at an alarming rate into the pantry adjacent to our kitchen. but we had a wonderful holiday together and even after husband left, sabin and i enjoyed our time together. we had fabulous cocktails, we shopped and ate great food. it really couldn’t have been better. 

 

on that weird friday, two days into my job and with the virus hanging over all of us, it was windy and i stopped at the grocery store in the little town where i work. the wind blew the car door out of my hand as i got out and i was so distracted, i didn’t even notice that it hit the vehicle next to me. unfortunately, the girlfriend of the guy who owned the vehicle did notice and pointed out that my car door had rubbed the dirt off her door when i returned to my car. her hysterical boyfriend rode his bike over to talk to me. i stupidly and distractedly gave them my phone number and they actually reported to insurance that the dirt was rubbed off their door and convinced their friend to declare that the entire car needed repainting. which ended up on my insurance. but i digress. and it was all because i was distracted. and stupidly and unlike me, didn’t take a picture at the scene, so i couldn’t dispute it. i also stupidly let on that i spoke danish. that was dumb. and possibly 2020 getting the best of me. 

but it may have been the only place where it did. because even two days into my new job, i was already included in a big and business critical project. and we managed to do something utterly amazing that i’ve never seen any other company do so quickly. it was pretty amazing and even exhilarating to be part of. and that damn virus made it possible. it was the kind of project that would been hemmed and hawed about and made into smaller pilot projects over a two-year period and we did it in 10 days. thank you, corona. and it’s continued at the same level and pace ever since and i have been continually amazed at the talent of my collagues and the things we can do together. i don’t think this would have become so apparent to me so quickly without the virus. we may be building the plane as we fly it, but damn, we are flying it. thank you, corona. 

my child hasn’t had the ideal start to college that we would have wanted, but she has had a pretty good time and she joined a sorority and made a lot of friends and one of her good friends from high school has transferred to asu as well. and thanks to my privileged position as an american citizen who is a permanent resident of denmark, i could travel to arizona to help her move out of her apartment and into the dorm. with a pitstop at my own asu professor’s home. and even though corona was raging, we wore our masks, we got some essential help from an old bloggy friend who lives in arizona now and we drank quite a lot of coronas (the good kind) by the pool. it was honestly, a lovely summer. and we never tested positive for corona. 

and now, she’s been home for nearly a month and while the darkness and lack of sunshine has been difficult for her, it’s also been great to have her home. she argues with her father and makes him admit defeat. he has to recognize that he is defeated in his white male privilege by the strong women he has raised. and it’s good for him. we’ve had a corona scare this week. a good friend of sabin’s spent the weekend with us last weekend and then tested positive last tuesday. we’ve been tested and tested again and are still negative. we start to wonder if we have some strange immunity that we don’t deserve. but while we await the vaccine, we will take what we can get. and in the meantime, we will eat good food, laugh and play games together and we will appreciate more than we counted on of 2020. thank you, corona, for reminding us of what’s important.

nocturne

thanks to the wonderful new york times podcast club, i discovered a new podcast this week. it's called nocturne. it feels like serendipity to discover it the day before the winter solstice, since it focuses on things that happen in the night. our days are short here in these northern climes - sunrise after 8 a.m. and that sunset feeling in the air around 2 p.m. (tho' it doesn't set for another hour or so after that), so these days are dark and long. and this luminous podcast helps. in fact, anything that seeks or reflects or attracts light helps - like highlighter. chanel highlighter. (or mac, or becca, or huda or anastacia or fenty by rihanna, or bobbi brown.) you can never have too much highlighter. but i digress.

it's been far too long since i've been awake at 2 a.m. without it being fitful sleep from fever or headache or pttd (post traumatic trump disorder). tonight, it's because i'm on holiday for the next week and because i had a latte from kafferiet as i left copenhagen at 5 p.m. and because it's been too long. i love it. i love being surrounded by darkness, only the glow of my screen and a candle behind me.

i find myself thinking about some kind of ritual for tomorrow's solstice...intentions for the year ahead, gratefulness for the year that's nearly over - because despite the mandarin moron, there is much for which to be grateful. it will surely involve candles and i even have an idea for a bit of highlighter. chanel, of course. the solstice deserves the best. but back to nocturne...

the podcast club suggested the shortboard episode of nocturne as the one to start with and it was amazing, but of those i listened to today (and there were several), i found the one most thought-provoking to be the one called life is but a dream. what if this is all a lucid dream? and what impact would it have if you could look at life that way...as a dream in which you are looking for what you can learn. what a powerful idea. and it's definitely shaping my intention for the solstice, which, since it's 2:39 at this moment in this paragraph, is later today. but first, a bit of lucid dreaming before i'm there.

winter solstice: the darkest day of the year

i don't know about you, but if this is indeed the last day of existence as we know it, it surely is taking its time. i'll admit we're taking it quite stille og roligt as they say in danish. in fact, i'd say we're downright making plans for the future. husband signed a contract for a new job today - it starts january 2. it's the kind of job that comes with a car, which is new for us and a little bit exciting. he doesn't know yet what kind of car he'll get, he's still letting it all sink in, i think. i'm voting audi, but i suppose he'll get a reliable toyota of some kind.

a cleaning/decorating/rearranging frenzy is building inside me, but first i have some sewing to finish for christmas. a couple of lovely, warm snuggle quilts for the big girls and maybe a fun bag or two if i get really ambitious. but what it means is that i think that the world will be here tomorrow to rearrange and that it will still be cold and people will need to snuggle up under a blanket.

we cut down a tree a week ago (it had to go anyway), but we still haven't brought it in and decorated it. i think we might not, actually, as horrible as that sounds. we're going to møn for christmas (one of our favorite places in denmark) and we won't be home anyway, so it feels a little bit like it doesn't matter. i think this old, rather uninspiring house stands in my way at times. in a way that makes me slightly depressed. tho' i'm trying to keep that at bay here in the christmas season. hmm, maybe a cheerful, warm tree, with twinkling lights would have helped...

speaking of christmas, i am perhaps feeling slightly humbug about it. sabin has done nothing but complain about her daily christmas calendar. there were a lot of tubes of paint in it, but i thought it was a fun way to give her art supplies. apparently, it was too boring. and it makes me feel bad that i'm raising a spoiled brat who can't even be grateful. i suppose it's my own fault, but it does rather depress me nonetheless. how can i wrest her from the grip of a consumer society? all we hear on the news is that we need to start "using" again, which means spend money on stuff. but really, we have all the stuff we need.  i declared that i didn't want anything for christmas and if people insisted, it should be something from a second-hand shop or flea market. i sincerely hope they listened.

maybe those mayans knew what they were doing, setting the end on the solstice - it is the darkest day of the year after all. it can only grow lighter from here.

* * *

worst words of 2012.

i think she missed out noms and FTW and that she insufficiently blamed pinterest for curate.

here's just an excerpt: "Epic. Adjective. Unless you're describing The Iliad or The Odyssey (and in a high school or college English class), choose anew, friends. Don't make me say this again in 2013."

pagan rituals and the winter solstice

one of these trees is now in our living room, covered with lights and ribbons and ornaments and tinsel. and i cannot even express how satisfying it is that our christmas tree came from our own yard. photos of it in its new location tomorrow.

in the meantime, happy solstice. decorating the tree seemed like the perfect pagan ritual to engage in on this, the darkest day of the year.

tomorrow the light begins to return. none too soon.

make the most of it, wherever you are.

moving back towards the light

-13°C

pink sunrises and sunsets.

clear, cold, sunny.

for now.

but promises of snow.

baking on the horizon.

and a bit of sewing.

the last day of school.

a year winding down.

and a new one on the horizon.

fresh and full of promise.

moving back towards the light.

  

* * *

a few beautiful, inspiring things...

stories of film

triptychs

happy winter solstice!

the day of the winter solstice started with a lunar eclipse.  it was much cooler in person than it turned out in the photos. they say it was the first eclipse that happened together with the winter solstice in 400 years. i am happy to have had clear skies to witness it.

8:21 a.m. - december 21, 2010

and the shortest day of the year ended with a particularly spectacular sunset.

4:01 p.m. - december 21, 2010

i said i wanted to do some kind of solstice ritual, but the ritual of appreciating the light in the morning and in the afternoon, when it was here, seems to be all the ritual i need. it was a glorious day, but i will be glad to see the light returning.

how will you celebrate the solstice?

it's all about the angle

i took these pictures the other day, just minutes after one another - one with the sun at my back and one facing it. both include the same frost-encrusted fence, sparkling in the winter sunlight, but it seems there's a huge difference. one a bit flat and bland and one dazzling. and i thought there was some kind of metaphor in it...for how you choose to look at things...whether you face them head on or turn your back to them.  whether they seem positive or negative. it's all about the perspective you choose. and looking at these, it seems to me that the choice is clear.

i'm not done pondering this one. as we approach the solstice, i have this rather pagan desire to have some kind of ceremony in its honor...to set the stage for the season ahead. and i definitely want the season ahead to be dazzling.

wordless wednesday - picking a christmas tree

winter solstice

today is the shortest day of the year. sunrise: 8:41 a.m. sunset: 3:38 p.m. it can only get better from here. thank goodness we have all that christmas cheer and candlelight and decorations to ease the bleak darkness. but today, i do feel a glimmer of hope already knowing the light begins to move in the right direction again tomorrow...

winter solstice

today is the day that the tide turns and we move away from the oppressive darkness back towards the light time. we had a little ceremony, lighting a candle next to hyacinths and our odin's eyeballs in order to help us look forward towards spring. in a way, winter solstice is like the beginning of a brand new year. how did you spend yours?