Solstice

These past few weeks have been a blur. This is not to say they went quickly; rather the days and weeks lost their names and melted into one another. The temperature dropped in steps: 70's to 60's, 60's to 50's until we were shivering through freezing nights and the last lingering pansies froze solid one morning and spent the afternoon thawing into limp mounds.





There is a reason no one gushes about the beauty of autumn in Tennessee. There is no glorious week of flaming oranges and reds in the hazy afternoon light. Instead stingy Southern trees clutch their green leaves like a family secret. As they weeks pass they surrender one by one, their leaves withering and dropping alone as the trees around them sway green and full or shiver their naked branches. It is only now, in mid-December, that the trees stand uniformly bare and chastened.

It is dark when I wake up and it is dark when I leave my office. I've grown accustomed to a long, nocturnal bus ride home. I learned new set of landmarks in my neighborhood - the stained glass windows of the Baptist Church, the particular pouring of street-lights at a crossroad. I pull the cord and walk the four lonely blocks to my house.





Autumn can be hard on the Southern psyche. This city normally hums with a happy-go-lucky energy bred by warmth and long days of sunshine and the trailing glitter of country stardom. But these dark days and bitter winds call for a toughening of the marrow. I face these days with my banged puritan mettle and feel at peace. Around me natives shiver in ball caps and hooded sweatshirts.





Lately I have not been doing what I should. Bookmarks linger between chapters, half-finished drawings lay anemically on my desk, letters linger unfinished and unsent. Instead I have been knitting, an ornate variation on pacing, as I listen to well-trod albums and other auditory pablum. I'll half-watch the local news while working the thumb of a mitten or turning a row, a cable needle held between my teeth. As Christmas approaches I find myself spiraling into comfort: laying on the couch with a blanket, listening to the favorite record of my 20th year.





I am content to let the last few weeks of 2010 pass as quietly as they wish. This has been a restorative year for me, a year where so many fractures finally knit together. I face the coming year with a feeling of possibility and a core that is rested, strengthened and ready to be pressed into service.

A mentor once told me that the years will pass regardless of what I choose to do with them. Fall reminds us of this again, as we watch the world around us disappear and feel the closeness of the frozen ground.