IslandRoar

Let There Be Light

Sunrise? Sunset?

What is it with humans and light? We joke about bugs being drawn to any light source, but really, we're not that different.

I'm old enough to remember when Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD) was first recognized as an actual condition, and I've known several people in my life who use a lamp in the winter to fight it.

There are whose who mock the whole thing, as though people who succumb to SAD are just a pansy-assed group of wimps.

But if we think about it honestly, I believe each of us find ourself seeking out light in our own life. And I'm not being metaphorical here. I mean actual light.

Light is a huge factor in painting, photography, all of the arts.

And scientifically speaking, we humans were not engineered to function very well in the dark. Sunlight brought clarity, warmth, and safety.

Night? Well, night is dark. And scary. Cold and long.

Even though I'm a night owl, I've been drawn to light my whole life. I can never stop myself from glancing in the windows of houses I drive by at night; they always seem so warm and inviting.

I'm infatuated with candles, and twinkling lights of any sort. I love driving toward a city at night, its skyline lit up with the possibility of what might be going on behind each one of those glowing windows.

As a child, my favorite part of driving home from my grandma's was the approach to the George Washington Bridge at night, its spectacularly shining arches spanning the Hudson as we headed back to New Jersey from the Bronx.

But I'm picky with my light. It can't be flashing like a strobe light, or too bright as in fluorescent. When energy-saving bulbs first appeared I balked at their abrasiveness and wouldn't use them in the parts of my house where I spent the most time. Fortunately, they've gotten better.

I need my light to be soft and inviting, to wrap itself gently about me, not knock me around the room with its harshness.

What I liked most about camping was always the campfire. And here on the Vineyard, my favorite part of a great beach party is, without a doubt, the bonfire at the end of the night.

Flames are mesmerizing. Light come to life.

Perhaps this is on my mind because the days are slowly getting longer. A little more light, a little more hope, each day.

How about you? Do you find yourself affected by light, or lack of it? Are you a moth, like me, or do you run for cover, a true creature of the night?

 

 

What Do We DO All Winter??

 

Today I'm guest-posting over at Motherese. It's part of the Won't You Be My Neighbor series started at The Never True Tales a while back.

Please click on over and say hi. I can almost promise you'll be glad you did. Aw hell, I do promise. And leave me a comment too. Because that'll make me really happy.

I'm going to Manhattan this weekend. In the snow. To visit my son and meet the new girlfriend. Hopefully, that'll make me really happy too.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

 

 

Winter Solstice

 
  

It's 12 years this month that The Ex and I split.

Yes, I asked him to leave in December. Nice timing, huh? But really, there's never a good time for these things, so December it was.

I hadn't thought about the darkness. How it descends the first three weeks of December and hovers like a mo' fo'.

My kids were 3, 6, and 10. Dinnertime was the hardest. For some reason, planning what to make, getting it ready and on the table, then sliding into the cleanup, homework, bath and bedtime ritual, seemed, for a long while, hopelessly overwhelming.

I had to find ways to let in the light.

I began collecting recipes, planning menus. Playing music at dinner. The kids took turns picking the CD's. One night might be West Side Story, the next, Britney Spears.

We'd raise the volume while everyone helped clear the table, even three year-old Daughter #2. Most nights we wound up dancing. I'd grab a kid and jitterbug. Or tango. Daughter #1 would tap. It was amazingly therapeutic.

Still, the darkness hovered.

I stole an idea from some woman's magazine on celebrating the winter solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year. I planned carefully.

Each older child was allowed to invite one friend. We lit a fire and ate dinner (homemade pizzas they topped themselves) by candlelight.

Everyone had to pick a poem from one of our many books of children's poetry. Preferably one about winter or the dark or the light. But any one would do. Each child read their poem at the table by the light of the candle flames. I read Daughter #2's. Then one I wrote myself.

I'm not sure if they got it. But they listened to me, to each other, respectfully. Suddenly kids were begging to read "one more" poem. Then another.

"We celebrate because today we've made it through the darkest day of the year," I told them. "Every day after this, the sun will move a little bit closer, and there will be a little more light. The days will grow longer and longer. Right up until the first day of summer."

It became a tradition. Each year: a friend, candles, poetry. I worried there might be some grumbling in high school. Instead, 16 year-old boys shrugged, decided to stay for dinner, and pored through books, looking for a poem.

Some of those other traditions that pulled me through survive to this day. Whenever all three kids are home, they still take turns picking our dinner music. And we frequently find ourselves dancing during cleanup.

And yes, it's still amazingly therapeutic.

 

A Time To Frost

Am I the only one who's always a little relieved here on the east coast when the first hard frost finally hits?

Oh, there's a part of me that's annoyed as well. All that work during spring and summer so we can finally enjoy the minimal efforts required each autumn, with the dahlias and mums, the last frantic blooms of annuals.

And then one night, a few short hours of lowered temps, and it's all gone. Just a gray-brown withered mess. Very sad.

Except that then I know I'm done. Yes, I'll clear the gardens and mulch. Maybe even sink some new bulbs before winter, grumbling all the while. But the weeding, watering, feeding, staking, and deadheading is over for another season.

It happened the week after Columbus Day this year, reasonable for this little frost pocket I happen to live in. Sometimes I make it another few days, but there's only been one year since I moved here that it didn't frost till early November. And of course there was that one frustrating season we didn't even get through September.

In New Jersey my garden often survived well into November, and once, that I can recall, even early December.

But I was younger then, not yet 40. Now I'm old and ready to hunker down for winter. Light a fire and put my PJ's on right after dinner. I'd rather read a book (or blog) in the time I would be gardening.

I know I'll feel differently come March when the first snowdrops and crocuses poke their little heads through.

Then I'll be so glad I took the time to plant all those bulbs.

My Amniotic Pool

Floating Away


 

I never wanted to own a pool.

I love to swim, but I preferred to do it in a pond or swim club, or someone else's pool. I assumed it would be way too much trouble to keep up.

But when we bought this house it had a pool. Built in, enclosed by an ugly, graying wooden fence almost six feet high.

Well, I thought, I guess I'll learn to deal with a pool.

It's turned out to be the best thing. When the kids were younger, they were in and out of it all day long. Even after a day at the beach, we still like to jump in the pool.

But it's only the last few years that I've learned to indulge in my favorite backyard pool activity: floating.

Yes, that's right. Floating.

There's nothing like coming home from a long day at work, putting on my suit, and climbing onto my floating lounge, complete with backrest and drink holder.

Sometimes I read or write, but mainly I lean back, trailing my hands and feet in the cool water. I shut my eyes, losing all track of time as the raft is pushed about by the breeze, bobbing off the sides of the pool, the sun warm on my skin.

Occasionally I load up my drink holder  with a cold beer (what? you thought I was more sophisticated? that maybe I'd be sipping a fine wine as I drifted about the pool?). I'm not usually a beer dinker, but there's something about an icy cold Coors Light on a hot summer day that is extremely satisfying.

Perhaps it has something to do with the whole return-to-the-womb phenomenon. The floating, I mean, not the beer. I'm nearly 100 percent sure there was no beer involved in my prenatal experience.

I'm always grateful for the shelter of the ugly weathered fence. You see, I like to float in private.

Maybe I don't want anyone to see me indulging in such decadence. Or maybe I just don't like to share.