Rhena Writes

Tag: winter-solstice

  • Keeping the home fires burning

    The deal around this house is that if the temperatures go into the fifties or above, we don’t have a fire in the wood stove. Sadly, today is one such day. I’m still sitting next to the stove even though it’s little more than an empty metal box right now because it’s still a comfy spot, just not quite as cozy as it is when there’s a hot glow emanated from the box.

    The fire is one of the ways that I get myself through the winter, especially in these fewer and fewer minutes of sunlight each day. I know. In this day and age, what’s the problem? We have plenty of indoor electric lighting and, yes, I do turn on many lights during the dark evenings, but somehow the glow of the fire just heals me right up. It sparks something primal and constant in me. It serves as a reminder that my ancestors made it through winters with little more than such a fire.

    The fire is also deeply satisfying because it’s something that I have to build and tend to: splitting kindling, carrying in wood from the stacks outside, making the fire starters. I couldn’t explain how to take care of the fire to someone else, it’s just becoming the second nature that arrives only with much attention and experimentation. Knowing what piece of wood needs to go on next, whether the damper needs to be opened or the embers merely stirred up. Yes, the smoke alarm went off as recently as the last week when I wasn’t being attentive enough but even those moments are becoming fewer and further between. There’s even work for the kids: stacking wood, unloading it, checking the moisture levels. And it’s particularly satisfying when one of them curls up for a nap on the nearby couch, stands in front of the box to warm his hands, or just stares into the flames. Yes, much of the time, they’d still choose looking at a screen (they are human children, after all) but I know that at least having the option of resting their eyes on the fire through the winter months kindles something in their imaginations. I’m guess anyway. And I’m projecting. I know that glow of the fire does something that no screen can do.

    Last week, we heard a strange noise which inspired me to call the company that installed and maintains our wood stove. I call it a company, but it’s a guy and a few employees. Anyway, it turns out that the owner has the same stove model that we have. So on the phone, he was leading me through some options of what the noise might have been and then told me how to remove a part of our pipe in order to take some pictures. Once I sent him the pictures, he said we could go ahead and start having fires again as everything was in working order.

    But two things happened in the course of that morning. The first was that I was able to get the pictures he needed. It feels quite good to be able to take care of things around my own house. The other thing that felt nice was just to have a chat with someone knowledgeable about these sorts of things. We swapped a few stories about our wood stoves and it was just, well, pleasant.

    I know that maybe that doesn’t sound like much, but I’m a stay at home mom. Many of my days, most of my social interaction is with my husband and kids. And while I do actually love my alone time and wouldn’t have it other way, that’s not to say that I don’t enjoy the occasional chat especially one that is about something else I enjoy. Namely: owning, using, and learning about this wood stove.

    I feel competent (in fire building, in home owning, in creating a homey atmosphere for my kids). I feel connected (to both ancestors and other people who are excited about things like wood stoves). I feel cozy and even creative. I get to use my body to build fires but I also use my brain.

    This post is not some sort of an advertisement for wood stoves (even the high efficiency ones like ours). What I’m trying to do here is to examine the things that bring me joy, to break them apart into their component parts so that I might more clearly feel that joy not just when I’m sitting in front of my wood stove. But in every moment. In every breath.

  • Happy Summer Solstice

    It’s a few days late, but that’s what happens sometimes. And the thing about summer solstice is that while it might mark the apex of the sun’s power, it doesn’t switch off the next day. It’s a gradual, six month long shift. So the date, June 21, is, in many ways arbitrary. Like a lot of dates and deadlines.

    On Saturday (the date of the solstice) I sat down at my computer to write a blog post. I’d already been to the farmer’s market earlier in the day. And we’d decided to make some lefse to eat with sausages and hot dogs on the grill at our local pool. It seemed a perfect way to soak up these longest hours of sunlight of the year. Years ago, we were in Norway around the time of the summer solstice. It was striking how few hours of dark there were. We weren’t quite far enough north to experience the true midnight when the sun never sets, but it was certainly difficult to fall asleep and stay asleep. I realized how near-constant light made me crave the dark.

    Of course, last year, the solstice passed without me really realizing it. From what I can remember, I was at the beginning of chemotherapy treatment. The fact of the earth’s movement around the sun faded into the background. So this year, I’m grateful that I don’t need to be so hyper-focused on the granular details of getting through each treatment, each week, each day, each moment. The earth, tilted as it is on its axis, is moving around the sun. And that’s just fine by me.

    So it was that when I sat down to write a blog post on Saturday, that I already had much of the day planned out, just as I had much of my blog posting and month planned out. Somewhere in the back of my head, I was gunning for one hundred consecutive days of posting to my blog. The solstice was meant to be the 90th day of posting, which meant that I would cap off June with a celebratory post about posting to my blog for 100 days in a row. I’d already thought about how I’d write that 100th post about what I learned posting everyday: how I’d built up my confidence as a writer, how I’d learned to write through all of the internalized voices that I’d allowed to silence me. I was so close to that one hundredth day of posting. I’d already put in 89 days of work.

    And yet. When I sat down to write on Saturday, I went to open the correct tabs as had become habit, and a small voice asked, “what are you doing?”

    I just wasn’t feeling it.

    What I was feeling is that it was the weekend, my kids and husband were home, we had plans to make lefse and go to the pool to enjoy the extra minutes of sunlight.

    I had nothing to prove to anyway, least of all myself.

    Besides, I’d already done 89 days of blogging in a row. It wasn’t as if all the lessons I’d learned and momentum I’d built would just disappear because I didn’t blog on the 90th day.

    So I shut off the computer and went to spend summer solstice with my family. And it was glorious and lovely. I ended up going for two swims that day. I ate well. And enjoyed time with my kids and husband. I slept better than I had possibly in years without the aid of pharmaceuticals.

    There’s inherent tension between having goals and being in the moment. And I’m working through some of that. I fear that if I don’t set goals, then I’ll never get anything done. And I grew up in a culture where self worth is toxically intertwined with productivity. 100 looks nice on the page. And maybe it would garner more attention than 89. But it’s also arbitrary. And I’m not doing this to for attention. And now I just realized that I’m also not doing this (writing this blog, posting daily or regularly) to prove anything to anyone. I’ve already proven everything that I need to the only person I need to answer to: myself.

    And what have I proven? That I’ll always be here to take care of myself, to spend time doing things that make me feel good: to make lefse, to eat good food, to night swim with my kids, to soak up all the hours of sunlight that I can.

    As with many goals that I’ve set for myself over the years, the number one hundred is ultimately arbitrary. What isn’t arbitrary? That the earth circles the sun once a year, that once a year we get the most number of hours of sunlight in a day, and me.

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  • Celebrate this breath. And then the next.

    Daily writing prompt
    What is your favorite holiday? Why is it your favorite?
    View all responses

    The trunks of banana trees, sliced into thick rounds, make for the perfect floating lantern. The bigger ones can be loaded up with flowers, incense, a candle, coins, and candy, (along with any manner of spiritual detritus that one might want to send away) and still remain buoyant once they are placed on the surface of the water. These gifts are for the Water Goddess. Children wait further down river to retrieve the money and sweets perhaps in her stead. My guess is that witnessing the joy and exuberance the children experience in the water is the real gift to the Goddess. Well, it was a gift to me anyway when I got to partake in Loy Krathong in my father’s hometown many years ago.

    The paper lanterns, the ones that float upward into the sky are lifted by the heat of the candle inside. They cannot bear the weight of so many offerings, but wishes and blessings in the form of words can be written on the paper before launching them into the night sky. And the hope, of course, is that they do not land in a dry patch of forest or a thatch rooftop and cause a fire. Unlikely, of course, as this of Loy Krathong is celebrated at the end of rainy season in Thailand while everything is still wet.

    During the day, there are performances, dancing and singing, likely a parade. There is a fair, too, with food and vendors.

    Or at least, that was what I remember from the year that I got to celebrate Loy Krathong in Thailand. The floating lanterns — both in the sky and on the river — are beautiful. I think now the whole thing would be considered very instragram-able. I feel lucky to have been able to partake before instagram, to have the memory of launching my own floating lantern into the river that used to come all the way up to the very back door of where my grandparents lived. I can’t really say why it’s important to me or significant that my memories of this holiday are from before Instagram but somehow it is.

    One year, as a child growing up in DC, we went down to float lanterns on the reflecting pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. Of course, they weren’t carried away on the current. That we had to retrieve them made the purpose of the ritual — to send away our bad luck — a little less poignant. And it was much colder in DC in November than in Thailand. Trust me: no children were wading into the reflecting pool to retrieve floating coins and candy. Still, it was lovely. And perhaps, in retrospect, it brought home to me the sacrifices that immigrant communities make especially when attempting to hold on to something of our ancestral homes.

    One of the things I love most about holidays like Loy Krathong is that they are tied to the seasons and the earth. Although I haven’t really lived in a culture that celebrates it as its own holiday, I love winter solstice. I love summer solstice too. Many years ago, I visited Norway in June. The long hours of sunlight were beautiful. (And, also, yes, at times a little eerie and disconcerting.) On the flip side, every year, I find winter solstice unexpectedly cozy. Something inside of me (maybe my Norwegian ancestry?) wants me to acknowledge each of these special dates, turning points on our solar calendars. Is it possible to celebrate a holiday alone or is this something that must be done communally?

    This question of what is my favorite holiday called forth these vivid memories of the few times I got to celebrate Loy Krathong. Still, I didn’t get to writing this blog post until rather late in the day compared to when I usually respond the daily prompt. My normal routine was disrupted by a doctor’s appointment and other parenting and household tasks in addition to the fatigue of radiation that I’m still experiencing. I’m glad that in between these chores, I had the memories of lanterns, bobbing along the river current and floating on the night air, to call upon. At the same time, I cannot say that Loy Krathong is my favorite holiday. Certainly, some of my favorite holiday memories are of this festival of water and light, but I do not celebrate this regularly enough in my current life to call it my favorite.

    And I feel this ambiguity particularly on a day like today when I was busy but also very much felt like a patient, very much still in the midst of dealing with cancer. A blood draw. Drugs. Pain. Fatigue. I’m painting a miserable picture here. But that’s not my intent. Or it’s only part of my intent. Because in between these moments of being poked and prodded and even within the pain and discomfort, I have to find a reason and a way to celebrate. I cannot wait for the full moon of the twelfth lunar month. I cannot wait for summer solstice. I cannot even wait for this weekend. I have to find the holiday, the reason to celebrate in each moment. Each breath. And so I do.