Solstice

Wishing hibernation were an option.

Christmas blues of different hues

not wanting to participate in the gimme, gimme gotchas

not wanting to buy buy, black bird

desiring flames. bonfires. torches. 

candles fighting the dark

wax dripping-hot, stinging me awake from this nightmare of buy buy black bird.

Hating the deadline 

December 25... you’re a dead-ringer for the death knell. You don’t meet the date; you don’t make the grade.

At 20 I cried the mellowdramatic tears of youth convinced the poignant purple flowers of spring signaled the last spring we’d ever have... heart-broken by love, I thought the entire WORLD must be ending.

At 20 I cried mellowdramatic tears - believing that if I didn’t finish all the hand-made gifts I’d set out to complete by 12-25, the world would open and swallow me whole and belch at the aftertaste of unsavory me... poor wretched me. As if Rumplestilskin had set me the task... the urgency felt REAL.

At 60 something I balk at being told to buy, buy more, buy now, buy for later, buy for your uncles, aunties and cousins twice removed. Buy all the Chi in China. Buy for the good of the economy. (Whose?) Just BUY for no damned reason.

What if the Mayans were right? What if there’s no December 22 - or any other date beyond Friday’s Solstice?

I think I’ll wait to shop 'til after the 25th and simply enjoy the “real weather” we’re having in Los Angeles today. Rain, cold (for us -spoiled by fair-weather 350 days a year - it’s C-O-L-D!) and naked trees make me want to curl up and cover up and read by the fire... with lots of candles lit and twinkle lights on. No buy-buy-gimme-gotchas can deter me from hot tea and sympathy for the sorry state of the world and it’s AK-47 frenzies.

Rest in peace, little ones. Rest and heal, mamas and papas, brothers, sisters, grand mothers and grand fathers, aunties, uncles, sons and daughters, friends of the fallen.

There is no sense. There is non-sense, and the scents of fear and terror on the wind. Let’s not let the terrorists win tonight, shall we?

Celebrate what ever makes sense to you and enjoy the light as best you can.

There is a promise to be heard in the sun’s return past this Friday’s longest night.

“I will return. I will warm the Earth and help your seeds grow. I will warm your heart and light your way.”

That’s the promise - simple and true.