The sound of a bus screeches its wheels in the distance on Queen St. Some kind of construction thuds, traffic hums and someone locks their car door—honk. All while house sparrows chirp in the cedar hedge beside the front garden. Nattering in love. I like seeing their fat feathery brown bodies fluttering about.
They were in branches and brambles as my sister and I walked around Ottawa this weekend too. A chorus of comfort during the winter months. Whenever I hear house sparrows I think they sound like close friends or family, all talking over one another, excited to get the next word in. A delight only presence allows
I know this is a chickadee and not a sparrow but I haven’t developed the sparrow photo yet.
Today is the winter solstice, the last of the darker days before the light begins its quiet return. I am burning incense and a patchouli candle while my cat Rosemary sleeps on the couch. Sunlight streams across our Christmas tree. The twinkle lights are left on at all hours of the day because this season is full of tender-heartache, that Charlie brownie feeling of being afraid of everything, something amiss next to all the hustle and gift-buying, yet receiving a parcel from a loved one can make all the difference. So there’s this flurry of emotions, all mixed together. Somehow this has become the overall sensation of this time of year for me. It marks losses in my life, people who are no longer in it and yet it also marks the freshness of new faces and the consistency of my family of origin. The traditions I’ve kept and the ones I’ve let go of to make space for something new.
I didn’t write here last month because I was handing in pages to my writing mentor. I spent most of this term working on the structure of my book and I must say this is the most difficult part of the process for me. The structure currently looks like many tattered fragments. I spent weeks writing into the void, trying to arrange these raw pieces into a three-act structure with a narrative arc. Something Cambellian. This is not the shape of my book though. For better or worse it looks more like something I’d make, wild and moving, vivid.
Perhaps like the blue sparkly squiggle I made when I was three. An ornament my mother hangs on the tree every Christmas. It’s string and glue and blue glitter. That’s it. The shape a mangled swirl and for whatever reason when I look at it I think, yep, that’s so very me.
This month I am finishing Avni Doshi’s Burnt Sugar, which is haunting and eloquent. Her writing is taut. Every sentence sharp. I’m amazed at this debut. For contemplations I’m reading Mary Oliver’s Dream Work and Marcus Aurelius Meditations. I read Zadie Smith’s Intimations in the early fall to which she went to Aurelius “in need of practical assistance” during the early months of the pandemic. Her essays are beautiful, sad and hopeful, with some sturdy wisdom. I liked Peonies of course, and A Provocation In The Park articulated things I thought a lot about this year.
As my sister and I walked around Ottawa this weekend celebrating what we called '“Sismas,” a lurking familiarity filled the air. A fear that we may be swept by another large wave of this virus with no end in sight and more uncertainty. The feeling was bleak and I pushed it away trying to be present. Still, it was there in the clouds, which covered the sky on the night of the full moon, in the stroll of strangers and underneath the snow.
We each bought a copy of Aurelius’ meditations and opened it with a couple cappuccinos at Little Victories overlooking confederation square. I stared at the chronology, which opens the book—200, 100, B.C./A.D., 100, 200. Thinking on time as linear and liminal.
“What is A.D. again?” I asked feeling stupid.
“After death.” She said plainly.
“Right. Like Christ’s death.”
Snow fell outside, a floating fall.
“Yeah exactly.” She said, left eyebrow raised.
“It’s wild that we measure time by Christ.” And I thought of the biblical stories we were raised with and our plans to celebrate the full moon with candles, incense, tarot and martinis.
“I know.” She said widening her sky blue eyes, “I think it’s going to change.”
The hairs on my arms became static. The world spinning as the solstice approached. The days darkening. Each snowflake different but made of the same stuff. The virus unknowable again. Unsettling.
Even Marcus understood, “The world is maintained by change—in the elements and in the things they compose.”
While I wasn’t blogging, I was dancing between writing. I’ve taken up a contemporary class on the Danforth. It’s the first time I’ve danced in a group setting in over a decade. In class we wear masks and sweat through them but it doesn’t matter. My teacher said to me after my first class back, “you’ve danced before.” My cheeks turned pink, “yes.” Dancing was something of a savior for me in youth. The movement a life-force, which helped me sort through a myriad of emotions. I don’t know if this class will be in person in 2022 so the months there means more now. The moments I lengthened sinews and skin with muscles tightening while music played will help me get through whatever is next. I’ll dance in our living room if I have to.
As the year comes to an end and all that surrounds seems uncertain again. I take comfort in carnal things, smearing butter on bread, flowers on the table, my cat stretching her limbs on the carpet, my partner’s hand at my waist or flipping through his Spotify recommending music (Crywank’s Momento Mori and Flatland’s EP). My sister’s laugh as she sips milky coffee, my mom’s voice on the other end of the phone, the weight of an axe in my dad’s hand as he chops wood for cold months, the stars in the night sky, books read and unread on my side table and the movement of my body as I dance.
I pay attention to what’s inside these carnal things, soul. There’s a painter whose work I am taken with named Antonia Showering. Her paintings make me think about higher selves and all the colour beyond our thin skin. Soul people touching, kissing, washing their hair in rivers, bathing in lakes and forests, arms linked on shoulders like mountains. The colour blends into the backgrounds, as if everything is animate. Something in her visuals reminds me what I feel when I meditate.
I am not a stoic. Nowhere close. Too many feelings but I value stoicism. I especially like that there’s part of me, which observes all my unruly thoughts and wayward moods. Aurlius writes in Book Two 1. “We were born to work together like feet, hands, and eyes, like two rows of teeth, upper and lower.” I cried when I read this small paragraph in the coffee shop because it’s true. But what happens when working together is best done apart?
I don’t really know how to end this post. I’m not sure I even want to put it here. I will though and I hope it adds to all the dark and light each of us is carrying around.
In winter, when my sister and I were kids, my dad would make an ice rink in the backyard. Sometimes he added water to whatever water fell from the sky, smoothing it out for a good freezing. The ice was dark like the night sky, always. Solid and sturdy. This was when we lived in the semi-detached bungalow. The corner lot my parents bought in the cul-de-sac. The rink formed around the trees and my family would go out and skate on it when the weather was cold enough to see our breaths. Clouds with every exhale. My mom loved it. I can picture her laughing and spinning, teaching my sister to skate backwards. My dad shooting a puck through two tree trunks pretending it’s a net. Me chasing our dog Misty, trying to grab her tail as I glided behind her. Childhood wasn’t always so idyllic (I wouldn’t be writing memoir if it was) but this is the love story, which came to mind as I walked by the pond in Woodbine Park at sunset this evening. Ice sheets with cracks like glass breaking. Leaves stuck between water as if pressed in a book.
The clouds leaked light.
I thought of my family.
This world of love my parents worked so hard to make, like a backyard rink. Despite the foibles and struggle.
I can imagine my dad working factory shifts and his worries about the 11% interest on the mortgage in the eighties. My mom running a home daycare to help while she made us chocolate chip pancakes in the mornings. They gave us what they could and to me it’s better than any parcel I’ll receive under a tree.
As I wrote last solstice, the layers we carry with us this time of year is shelter for what’s to come. Folded into our sleeves and socks.
While the light dims, we wait. Hold faith and each other. Hold life. We have been here before, through long iron nights. Now is the lambent hum, it is faint and quiet, before the bright return.
What comes to mind now is from Sally Rooney’s Normal People, “Life offers up these moments of joy despite everything.”
So may there be moments of joy despite everything this season.
Merry Winter Solstice!