Today is the 2020 Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year. I like to think of tomorrow as the first day of spring. Huh? Let me unwind that.
The days start lengthening and gradually, minute by minute, today’s 5 o’clock shadows will occur at 6 pm, then 7 pm by April. Thus, to me, the good news is that with more and more daylight, I can hasten through the winter – especially this pandemic winter – with my eye on spring.
The other good news is that the vaccine is nearer to each of us, also day by day.
This year, we have also “the Great Conjunction,” an event during which the two largest planets in our solar system – Jupiter and Saturn – will nearly overlap to form a “double planet.” This hasn’t happened since Galileo’s time back in 1226. On the East Coast, the appearance of an unusually bright “star” will be visible in the southwest about 40 minutes after sunset. Also known as “the Christmas star,l” I just saw it on a crystal clear night – breathtaking in its size.
Light up the candles and fires – that’s how some traditions celebrate this special day within the “season of light.” Other traditions call for meditation. My iPhone “Calm” app popped up this reminder: “Wherever you are, be there completely.” In the current context, I must confess, that very Zen notion is a tough one to contemplate. I’ve spent plenty of time these endless months journeying “inward.” By now, I’d rather be almost anywhere else! Being cooped us has elicited an overactive “fight or flight” response – with emphasis on positive exploration. So I respond to the “flight” impulse and meditate on new beginnings.
Being a solo womantraveler during the pandemic is far from the same journey than it was when I began this blog in 2005. Now “distance” has new meanings. As little as a year ago, “distant” meant traveling 3,000 or 10,000 miles for the next adventure; today it is to the next room, or the next Zoom, or three blocks up the street or 5 miles to the woodsy park greenway for a 4-mile hike. Sometimes I hop in my car and drive 20 minutes to another part of town, simply to see a neighborhood that is charming, different in concept, simply beautiful, or perhaps even eliciting fond memories or generating new ideas from the shape of the trees or the color of the buildings or the layout of the landscape.
There are days I wake up with boundless creative energy and others that I only yearn deeply, almost paralyzed with emotion, for close-up time with friends and family and in-person adventures to favorite places. Today I ran the gamut of those feelings; some days are like that, too, and I roll with them like waves that have become more recognizable.
Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty of upside to traveling solo, whether from the remote office during the pandemic or in Paris, Napa Valley or Central Park during previous happier times. It takes tremendous energy, creativity and resourcefulness, however, and what I’ve appreciated more and more is the value of resourcefulness. I travel through a long list of books on my Kindle; I escape into new cultures by trying out unfamiliar recipes like never before. I journey into arts venues via an endless supply of virtual online and streaming arts stages and symphony halls offered so generously by the artists who need to create, for us who desperately need their creative expression. Their bounty has been immeasurable as they’ve dipped into their own resourcefulness, and we owe them, bigtime.
Tonight I saw the Christmas star. Its “uniqueness” sent hope this way. As we look to the rest of the season of light, the holidays and the new year, I wish you, first of all, good health and beyond that, many happy journeys. They are all around us in what might seem like the smallest moments, as we have discovered this year.
