Life After Windbird, Day 130: The Shortest Day
Date: Tuesday, December 20, 2016
Weather: Partly Cloudy; High Temp 41, Low 31 degrees F
Location: At Home at The Studio, Falmouth, MA
At 5:44 am, the shortest day of the year for those of us who live north of the equator will be upon us. For centuries, people have celebrated this special day which marks a change in the seasons. This is a celebration shared by everyone on earth. There are not many things all of us can celebrate together, so that makes solstice very special. Heather and Jed have a tradition of celebrating winter solstice, so this evening just after sunset, we ushered in the shortest day and the longest night with friends from Heather and Jed’s neighborhood. Heather read a poem that was written for Revels called The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper and Sam lit the solstice fire as we all yelled out, “Welcome Yule.”
Heather made her traditional chocolate yule log and we had cookies made by boys and myself and some from the neighbors.
We also had hot mulled apple cider, egg nog, and hot chocolate for drinks and the fire to keep us warm. It was a delightful celebration.
The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper
And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule.
After our celebration and dinner, I headed to downtown Falmouth to attend a Christmas concert at St. Barnabus Episcopal Church with friends Jane and Bruce and Olivia and Terry. This year the concert was ‘A Skylark Christmas’ presented by an ensemble of world-class vocalists who call themselves Skylark. Tonight’s program featured excerpts from the works of German composer Hugo Distler’s Christmas cantata. The singing was superb. And afterwards, we all went to Liam Maguire’s, a downtown Irish pub, for drinks and conversation. It was a lovely day and evening . . . until I got home and discovered that I have yet another technical difficulty. These days when I write my log, I turn on the TV to catch up on the day’s news. Yesterday I thought I had rectified my cable issues, but tonight they are back. I have new equipment that worked great yesterday and this morning, but tonight when I got home, there once again was no internet and no TV. I rolled back the rug, moved the Christmas tree, and tried to reboot the system with no success. This time when I talked to Comcast, they did more trouble shooting and decided that I am having signal issues. A technician cannot come until Thursday. It’s not the end of the world, but it makes me very sad and frustrated to keep having these issues. I just want things to work right without so many hassles. And it doesn’t help that I had to roll back the living room rug and pull the Christmas tree out of the corner in order to get access to the cable equipment. Yesterday after I got the new cable box and everything was working just fine, I wrapped the Christmas presents and put them under the tree. Tonight I had to move all of that and will have to leave it that way until Thursday. What an ugly ending to such a delightful day.
