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Solstice experiences
Dec. 21st, 2008 03:29 pmWe had an enormous ice storm on Thursday night: half an inch of freezing rain coated every surface. Our power went out at about three in the morning, shortly after the spouse came down with my stomach virus.
As the temperature in the house slowly fell, I was very aware of my status as the only able-bodied adult in the household, the one who would have to find us shelter if it got too cold to stay in the house safely. Two cats, one of them half-shaved; three humans, one of them still vomiting on the hour. Did I have any friends who loved me enough to take that in? And whom I didn't love too much to let them?
The heat came back on about noon, thank God, but the outside temperature continued to fall. This morning, it was four below zero when I got up and drove to the gym. The landscape was strange. The wind had been blowing, and brittle things were shattering; walking across a parking lot was like walking through a snowglobe, all gorgeously coated branches on every side and fragments of glitter underfoot.
The power was out in the gym, but they let several of us in to walk or run on the second-floor track. It was dimmer inside than out. Down below the track, three teenage marching-band members showed up with drum sets and began to improvise. Outside the broad windows, the sun slowly came up over the river, the only warm color in the landscape.
Usually I feel too well protected from the power of nature to have any proper pagan feelings; of course I'm conscious that a virus or a mudslide could kill me at any moment, but my awareness isn't visceral. I'm not, on a day-to-day basis, grateful for things like light and warmth and food and the ability to keep it down.
It seems an appropriate time of year to be reminded.
As the temperature in the house slowly fell, I was very aware of my status as the only able-bodied adult in the household, the one who would have to find us shelter if it got too cold to stay in the house safely. Two cats, one of them half-shaved; three humans, one of them still vomiting on the hour. Did I have any friends who loved me enough to take that in? And whom I didn't love too much to let them?
The heat came back on about noon, thank God, but the outside temperature continued to fall. This morning, it was four below zero when I got up and drove to the gym. The landscape was strange. The wind had been blowing, and brittle things were shattering; walking across a parking lot was like walking through a snowglobe, all gorgeously coated branches on every side and fragments of glitter underfoot.
The power was out in the gym, but they let several of us in to walk or run on the second-floor track. It was dimmer inside than out. Down below the track, three teenage marching-band members showed up with drum sets and began to improvise. Outside the broad windows, the sun slowly came up over the river, the only warm color in the landscape.
Usually I feel too well protected from the power of nature to have any proper pagan feelings; of course I'm conscious that a virus or a mudslide could kill me at any moment, but my awareness isn't visceral. I'm not, on a day-to-day basis, grateful for things like light and warmth and food and the ability to keep it down.
It seems an appropriate time of year to be reminded.