First we forgot where we’d planted those bulbs last year, and then we forgot that we’d planted at all. Then we forgot what plants are altogether, and I blamed you for my freezing and forgetting. And the nights were long and cold and scary; can we live through February?
I took the time to go to California over the holidays, to visit my family, have my love meet my mother, and go preside over a session at the MLA in San Diego. (Preside, v. bask in the coolness of one’s presenters and participate in lively debate, without actually having had to write a paper.)
MLA was fun! I very much wish I could’ve stayed for the whole thing, but family took precedence. My session’s respondent was stuck in Denver with a broken airplane, which was a cryin’ shame because we’d all been really looking forward to having him there. Hopefully, our paths will cross at some later point.
Holidays with my California-residing family are never boring, and this year proved no exception. For the first time since my father passed away, I was there on the anniversary of that day; so E., my mother and I made the trip over to the cemetery and stood in the drizzling tinny rain, contemplating words to say. On another day altogether, two of us sneaked out of the house in the early hours of the morning, drove over to Malibu and the Pacific Coast Highway, and greeted the sun on the ocean’s shore. Rather chilly, but the most gorgeous sunrise I’ve seen in a while, with the added bonus of a lapping-water soundtrack and ocean salt on our breath.
My grandmother’s Alzheimer’s is progressing, and things are difficult for everyone. There are so many challenges associated with this that the sole mitigating factor of my mother’s cousin being there to help out is but a drop in the bucket.
Upon returning home to Providence, I spent a week or two reassembling my worklife; which brings us to now. Now, the weather is cold and dreary. Hasn’t been daylight enough in ages, which affects me more strongly than I’d like. Tasks take much more time than usual, and sleep is a precious commodity of which I seem to need more in the winter. It is difficult to do anything, much less keep up the pace I usually have no trouble maintaining.
And so I light candles against the darkness, put on music, buy gorgeous vegetables that do not smell of summer at all and wake them up by cooking them. Then I work, huddled in sweater and blanket, Earl Gray with milk in the mug beside me, soft warm metal of the laptop reassuring against my leg.
Solstice is past, and the days are lengthening little by little.
