Overlooked Solstice

What with weather more spring-like than wintery this year, I managed to overlook the passage of the Winter Solstice in midst of last-minute Christmas preparations. It happened on December 22—and daylight lasted 9 hours and 4 minutes. Today, standing at the threshold of yet another year in our lives the day has already gained four minutes; and waking today at 7:28, it struck me odd that it was as light as it was. Was that perception genuine? Do four minutes make that much of a difference? Well, perhaps, some years they do. 2015 was not a bad here for us here, locally, but somehow it seems a good thing that we’re just about to wave the year good-bye…

Farewells

Our last day here. The pain of saying goodbye—again! The emotion is impossible to rationalize—much as love is. Parting is simply an aspect of it, and contemplation of moments of togetherness in light of it are overwhelmingly painful. Our hearts don’t wish to experience it until some temporal distance has eased their intensity. Ultimately there shall be union, not in this valley we evidently chose to enter voluntarily…perhaps, who knows, to learn to value what, in search of lesser goods, we lost in the descent. (Florida notes.)