Sneaking In at the Last Minute

 

#6--Solstice Revelations

 

Good lord...

I rolled out a "10 things" with an eye toward kick-starting myself into finishing out the year with a flurry of essays.

AND...

My last post was over a month ago.

In fact, I have just two days left of 2022 to post...anything.

The Solstice has come and gone.  I dutifully inscribed little scraps of paper with "things that no longer serve," and incinerated them in my Solstice Fire.  We'll see where that all goes in the coming year.

In the meantime, the Universe has been nudging me toward the realization that there are some things that no longer serve which I have not been inclined to acknowledge.  Things that are so big and have been a part of my life for so long that it will actually be very difficult to let them go, though they do indeed no longer serve.

One of those things is my business--the thing which kept me going and gave me purpose during some very difficult years.  For more than twenty years, it's been the scrap of floating debris that's kept my head above water through some pretty rough surf.  But now, with our move to Eugene offering us fewer accessible market opportunities, and the Scandinavian Festival becoming a challenge which my ancient work-force has aged out of...it's probably time to close it down.  Not only will that be tough emotionally, but the sheer volume of stuff we'll have to liquidate is a daunting and exhausting thought.

There is one other dear and important thing that has outlived its usefulness in my life, and will have to be put to bed:

This blog.

I'll have to finally acknowledge that the loss of readers and feedback has destroyed my desire to come here and write.  

I came to that realization recently, when I sat and read, as I sometimes do, some of my old essays.  From the old AOL days, and even a bit beyond, when I still had people who came here and left evidence that they had been.  

My writing was GOOD then.  I became a better writer than I had ever thought possible.  Creative.  Clear.  Concise.  

Because I was talking to somebody.

And they were talking back.

"Coming to Terms..." is not that anymore.  And it hasn't been for a very long time.  When I look at the (mostly) crap I've written in the past few years...not only is it infrequent, it's just not very good.  It's not even close to the caliber of stuff I was putting out years ago.  Even when I was losing my sanity trying to play entrepreneur, I could write decent and interesting stuff.

Not anymore.   

I've kept coming here because I thought this would be the corner of "social media" that I could stomach.  Not ugly.  not contentious. "My little corner of the internet."

But it's not social here.  It's just...dead quiet.  

And putting thoughts here is really no better than letting them rattle around in my head.

In September of 2023, this blog will turn 20 years old.  

I'll try to continue to write here until then.  Or at least post photos, or something.  But I think the handwriting is on the wall for "Coming to Terms..."  I'll take the next nine months to wrap up 20 years of...whatever this is.

And, who knows?  Maybe something better, more fitting to my current life, will take its place.

The Universe has so far been very good about providing appropriate replacements when it finally pries my hands off something that no longer serves.

I'm looking forward to finding out what The Universe will find for me this time.  

 

 

#5--The Guardian

 

5.)  My determination to write this post has once again thrown a monkey wrench into my mojo.  It’s relatively simple to throw together an essay about external things…things that happen, things I have a strong opinion about.  But this one…this is something that is intensely personal.  So much so that I find it nearly impossible to frame it in a way that would make sense to anyone outside myself.  I am acutely aware that it might come off as delusional, ignorant drivel.

Anyone who has followed this blog for any length of time is aware of my path of spirituality.  It doesn’t have a name, it isn’t anyone’s religion.  I suppose it’s fine to belong to a spiritual community, but I just…don’t feel the need.  “Churches” tend to create rules defining the “right” ways and the “wrong” ways to conduct a relationship with the Almighty.  I can’t subscribe to that.  The Creator of the Universe is obviously a vast, creative, diverse entity.  Who am I, who is anybody, to attempt to define, and in doing so, limit the Creator to a size and character that we poor humans can understand?

People sometimes do eventually figure out that “God” is not the big guy in the sky who is everything human beings are, only bigger and badder—the ultimate extreme human.  Unfortunately, this tends to turn many formerly religious folks into atheists.  The logic is that if “God” isn’t what they’ve always been led to believe, then “God” doesn’t exist at all.  I just find that…incredibly sad. 

I figured out years ago that god wasn’t necessarily what any religion paints god to be.  But, rather than concluding that god doesn’t exist, it seemed reasonable to believe that our perception of the Creator of the Universe was so limited as to be erroneous.   Not to mention able to be twisted into a tool used to enrich certain human beings at the expense of others, which seems to be the chief function of religion in our world.

The part where I think other people might find it hard to follow me is this: While I claim to understand that the Creator is too vast and complex for our minds to truly grasp, I still believe that the creative energy that IS the Almighty encourages a personal connection to it.  Why does “God” have to be human in order to welcome a connection to individual people?  To make that claim would be to again place a limit on a limitless power.  If my spirituality has one rule, it is to never place limits on the power of the Almighty.

This all leads me to the subject of this post:

The Guardian.

 Once I walked away from traditional religion, I gradually became aware the Universe encouraged a connection with me.  I will admit my relationship to that connection has run hot and cold over the years.  There are times when a relationship with something beyond ourselves, something that cannot be seen or heard or touched, seems so remote as to be impossible.  It isn’t always easy to believe.  In religious circles, they often call this a “crisis of faith.”

My spiritual journey has progressed to the place where I am convinced that not only is the Creator connected to me…it watches over me.  I suppose this concept has been understood by religion for centuries.  There are guardian angels, patron saints, familiars, spirit guides…  All based on the idea that the Creator provides protection and guidance.  As I have walked my spiritual path, turned toward and sometimes away from the Creator for a time, I’ve gradually become aware that I have received benevolent protection and guidance for years, in such a form that is, for me, indisputable evidence that not only does the Almighty exist, but the Almighty has forged and maintains a connection to me personally.  Pretty heady stuff.

At no time has this been more evident than the past few pandemic-ridden years.  It has been quite a journey, and I have felt undeniably blessed and protected since it began, and even before.

In 2018, a full two years before COVID was upon us, I became convinced that the time had come for our little household to strip down, shed debt and move back “home” to my family.  It’s not like an angel came to me in a dream or anything.  I just decided, “NOW is the time.”  I thought I was setting us up for retirement.  And I set about to make it happen.  By early 2019, all was accomplished.

Less than a year later, the pandemic struck.  In August of 2020, the place where the husband had worked for over 25 years shut its doors…he was out of work.  But since we had shed $1400 a month debt service and were living in Eugene in a house with no mortgage, we were prepared.  We had meticulously set ourselves up to weather a disaster that nobody had any idea was going to happen.

Unemployment and government COVID benefits were sufficient to meet our finacancial needs (and then some.)  When unemployment ran out, husband landed a job that coincidentally (?) brought in almost exactly the income he was receiving from unemployment.  We applied for and obtained a huge government grant to keep our small business afloat when it was sidelined for 2 years by COVID.  Sure, we had to participate in our own survival.  But it was almost ridiculously easy to slide from one benefit to the next...when one thing ran out, another opportunity popped up.  Almost like it was planned.   

How to explain that?

All that time when I was almost crazy with anxiety about the specter of illness and death, the one thing I did NOT have to worry about was our financial well-being.  I didn’t have to stress about how to keep a roof over our heads or food on the table.  It was taken care of.  By a power far beyond myself.   

And, honestly, I understood that to be the case.  We have been protected and provided for during this whole thing.

And now that the time of fear is mostly over, lest I take for granted that the Creator holds us in the palm of its hand, I daily discover instances where I know I am being protected and guided.

Gradually, I’ve felt inspired to name the aspect of the Almighty that has watched over us and kept us from disaster. 

I call it the Guardian.  

The Guardian who has walked beside me, protected me under its wing, for years, unseen.

And I am grateful.  Every day. 

 

 

#4--Service!

4.)  Let's face it: those who control the lion's share of the wealth in the US have done a fine job of hauling the country back to the conditions present in the infancy of the industrial revolution--when workers were damn-near slaves to the business moguls who controlled nearly every aspect of their lives.  You lived in company housing.  You bought your food at the company store.  The aim, I assume, was the same as it is now: for the rich to get richer on the backs of the people who made them rich, and with whom they would be damned if they would share the spoils.  Sure, industry had to pay people to work...slavery was illegal.  But industry was intent on getting every penny they paid out in wages--plus more--back from the workers who toiled in the factories.  This, of course, led to the birth of the Labor Movement.  For all their boogers and warts, we should never forget that unions were born to advance workers' interests, hold wealthy employers accountable and generally force them to share the spoils of success with their employees.   

Fast forward to the second decade of the 21st century (almost 150 years, for gods sake!)  The factory jobs that had ultimately been forced to provide living wages to generations of Americans have been shipped overseas, where workers will toil for a fraction of the cost of American labor.  This has created our crappy "consumer economy," where 70% of jobs available are in the service industry.  Service jobs were once the bailiwick of students and second-income "housewives."  In 21st-century America, they've been elevated to the status of primary income for many Americans.

To add insult to this injury, or perhaps to facilitate this injury, the US labor movement is MIA.  After a century and a half of constant battle against the forces of the rich and powerful (who have steadily striven to set up our government to favor the rich and powerful), the union movement is, if not certifiably dead, then definitely on life support. And the propaganda efforts of the rich and powerful have been so successful, they have convinced struggling Americans to vote against their own interests,  guaranteeing the wealthy a lock on power.  As if that were not enough, Mr. and Mrs. Average American have been encouraged to viciously vilify anyone they perceive to be below them on the economic food chain.  "Service job isn't paying you enough?  Go to school, get an education and get a real job!"  As if that avenue to climbing out of poverty still existed in "the land of opportunity." 

And because these are the only jobs available, service people have been subjected to the most diabolical treatment by the industries whose pockets they toil to line.  Crappy wages.  No regular schedules.  No insurance coverage.  No guarantee of hours.  No vacation pay.  American workers have been forced to give up every hard-won benefit secured for them by the labor movement in the last century.  Workers are "lucky to have jobs."  You don't like your job?  We'll get rid of you and hire some other poor schlub to take your place.  It doesn't matter to us.  YOU don't matter to us. 

Workers had little choice but to tolerate such treatment, if they wanted to keep roofs over their heads and food on the table.  Which, in any case, they could not do without government assistance, even if they DID value their jobs.   

And then came COVID.

Poorly paid, unappreciated service employees suddenly became "front line workers."  And the only reward that came with that appellation was the title itself.  Little pay increase, if any at all.  No additional medical benefits, no additional sick time.  In addition, management did nothing to protect workers from rude, violent, entitled customers who took out their frustrations about COVID restrictions on the poor overworked peons behind the counters.

At one point, early on in the pandemic, the government actually paid people to not work.  

Which, unfortunately for the businesses that have for decades depended upon exploitative labor practices to line the pockets of the rich, gave workers a chance to see what life would be like if they were NOT chained to jobs where they were treated like worthless crap.  

And, guess what?  They rebelled.

They used the short breather they were given by the government to take stock of their lives...and legions of under-appreciated service workers decided NOT to ever go back to the jobs that made their lives more miserable than tolerable.  

Surprise!

Suddenly, the service industry had to swallow hard and deep, and start offering incentives to get people to stand behind their counters.  Signing bonuses.  Increased wages.  Health benefits.  

And, of course, the price of fast food has skyrocketed in order to cover the cost.

But, you know what? 

I am more than willing to pay people a decent living wage to flip burgers and fry fries.  Back in the olden days, just after the dinosaurs became extinct, my husband and I bought a home and two new cars on service worker salaries. People should be able to work in the service sector and make a decent living.  

Now, we are retirees; we don’t have a lot of extra money, but we do have enough money to eat out a couple of times a week. And due to COVID, we haven't seen the inside of a sit-down restaurant in almost three years.  So it's fast-food drive-ups or carry-out all the way.  And I'm okay with that.  If I have to spend $18 or $20 on a meal at McDonald's, just so the workers can pay their rent, I'm fine with that.  

But...and there is always a but.  And I'm sure this part is not going to get the nods of agreement from liberal readers that perhaps the rest of this post has inspired.

If I'm going to pay more for my meal because fast food workers need to make a living wage, then fast food workers need to be retrained to prepare the food the way it should be.  They need to care about the product they turn out.  If you’re going to serve me a cheeseburger, melt the damn cheese. Assemble the sandwich so that when I unwrap it, it’s still standing in a straight-ish column, not so that everything is sliding off one side of the bun. Don’t blob all the condiments in the center. And how about making sure the fries are hot when they go into the bag?  I don't expect fast food chains to spend a lot of dough to "improve" their product. The product is just fine, if it's prepared with a little bit of care.  Invest the money in well-trained, service-minded staff, people who might be inspired to take a few extra seconds to actually think about and take pride in what they're doing. Perhaps even to make it how they would like to eat it. 

I spent most of my working life making food, much of it fast. So I know it can be done.

Of course, in order to get the employees to care about their product, the employers need to show they care about their workers.

And perhaps that is where this whole thing falls apart.

For now, anyway.

But I have a feeling that's going to change.  Because it has to, if companies intend to survive in the pandemic-altered landscape of the American service industry.  

We shall see.     

#3--Wrestling Persistent Demons

 

I really DID intend to launch a more or less cohesive "Ten Things..." last month.  

Unfortunately, I ran out of mojo after the first two.  I'm particularly chapped about that.  Leaving the whole thing hanging after the post about pronouns put way too much emphasis on the subject of that post, when, in fact, it just happened to be the first thing I could pull out of the huge barrel of unwritten essays stored in the attic of my brain.  It's not exactly a thing I invest a great deal of thought into on a daily basis.  

I don't now why I have such a hard time sitting down to write these days.  I have plenty of ideas swirling around in my mind.  I just feel too...fidgety...to sit down and invest the brainpower into organizing them into cohesive essays.  

So...I thought I would make that thorny problem Number 3 of my ten things, and see if maybe it will jump start me enough to get me through the rest of the list.  Since it seems to be the over-arching issue of my life these days.

Come back tomorrow and see if there is a Number 4 waiting for you.  I give it about a 20% chance of happening.       

 

#2--Gender-ama

 

2.) I'm going to make an admission here that will have people questioning my card-carrying liberal politics.

I'm sorry, but the whole gender-identity, proper pronoun issue is just...ridiculously over-the-top.  I can't endorse it.

Don't get me wrong.  I don't care who anybody chooses to love, sleep with, have kinky sex with or raise a family with.  It is none of my damn business.  It is none of ANYBODY'S damn business besides the consenting adults involved.

So why do I have to know or care enough about your personal sexual orientation or gender identity to choose the proper pronoun by which you prefer to be referred (when I'm talking to someone else ABOUT you, since I won't use any pronoun besides "you" when I'm talking TO you, will I?)

American pop culture has become SO about sex--sex, sex and more sex.  All sex, all the time.  So I actually GET why gender identity would be carried out to the ridiculous nth degree.  I mean, if everything has to be about sex, then I must have to carefully consider and infinitesimally define my exact place in the culture.  And shout it from the rooftops.  And insist that the entire world acknowledge and approve it.  

Really?

Do we really need the approval of the entire world to be who we are?

Doesn't that assign a level of control over my ultimate happiness...over my acceptance of myself... to the world at large, that I should not want to concede?

I'm sorry.  I'm more of the opinion that we should all suck it up, be who we are, let others "accept" or not, because they're going to anyway...

...and not let what anybody else thinks or believes about my personal, private behaviors have that kind of power over me.

Why was "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" such a terrible thing?  I don't want to ask you about your sexual orientation.  I shouldn't have to.  It's none of my business.  It has absolutely no bearing on how I interact with you.   And I really don't need you to tell me, either.  I mean, you can tell me if you want.  It's not going to offend me.  But you shouldn't feel like you have to tell me, for whatever reason.  That information is private.  It's between you and whomever you choose to have a relationship with.  Guard it.  Cherish it.  Keep it sacred.

Don't allow the world to force you to exploit it.        

 

A Protracted "10 Things..."

 

I've been mostly MIA for the past many moons.  I don't know what my problem has been.  Not exactly been too busy, though we did (finally!) do the Scandinavian Festival in August.  Which kept us busy and exhausted until about September 1.

I'm going to try to catch up by concocting a "Ten Things" list.  I'll include snippets about what I've been up to all summer, plus maybe some short mentions of things that have been going around in my head the past several months.

Let's start with 

1.)  It finally got me.  COVID, that is.  Came home from our little trip up to the PDX area and promptly came down with the sore throat and the head like a medicine ball, though I never ran a high fever.  I was miserable for almost a week.  Didn't sleep worth a damn for days running...because I really can't sleep when my sinuses are so blocked that I can't breathe.  I did take one of those rapid at-home tests, and of course it came out negative.  But those things are notoriously unreliable, and no one is going to convince me that I didn't have COVID.  Despite me being 3x vaxxed and boosted, and wearing masks religiously when indoors in public, somehow the virus found me, the bastard.  Ack.  Now I have to wait some untold number of weeks before I can get the new Omicron-specific booster.  Though, at this point, I'm not sure whether it's worth it to bother. 

Let's leave this here, and see if I can come up with #2 tomorrow.    

Hey Nineteen!

 

Let's Explode Some Heads

It's no secret to anybody who has ever read my writings that I H.A.T.E. our "national anthem."

It has always seemed to me that a song that's all about war and battle has no business being the "anthem" that represents the country in front of and among the nations of the world.

I wonder, sometimes, if perhaps the song itself is partly to blame for our general warlike attitude toward the rest of the world.  

I was put in mind of my curmudgeonly attitude at an event that we did this past weekend.

An antique faire.

At which there was a (very bad) country band.

And the first thing they had to do was play the national anthem.

WTF???  

But then I got to thinking...

"The Star-Spangled Banner," with all its imagery of war and battles and "rockets red glare," DOES have one thing to recommend it.

It does not mention God.

I wondered if cantankerous, "god-fearing," racist, misogynist, fascist Trumpers have given that any thought.

And I also wondered if that wasn't one of the very points that caused it to be chosen over  "America the Beautiful" ("God shed his grace on thee," and all) as the national song.  Because we are, supposedly, a nation that separates church from state.  In fact, the founders thought that so important, they wrote it into the Constitution.

I'd love to see how this theory would fly on social media.  We'd have redneck heads exploding all over the place.

 

Again, Everywhere

 

AND...

Another mass shooting, or attempted mass shooting.  Miraculously, the guy only managed to kill two people, though he walked up and down the aisles of a grocery store taking potshots with an AR-15.    

This happened in a city just on the other side of the Cascades from here.  117 miles from Eugene, to be exact. 

Apparently, the negligible body count did not rate notice by national news media.

In fact, it barely made the local news.

We've become hardened to it now, haven't we?

Just...accustomed  to the fact that if you leave the house, go to the grocery store, the movies, the mall, a concert, a parade...

You may never make it home again.

It's just the risk we take, here in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Freedom.

Yeah.  

Bite me.

Finally Retired

 

 

 

One month ago, the husband finally decided to hang up his spurs and join the ranks of the blissfully retired.

 

A few days later, I thought I would report in here with my thoughts.  I wanted to say, most wives would be trepidatious  about the prospect of having the old man underfoot 24/7.  But, since I had been eagerly anticipating this day for years, I would just blissfully slide into a state of togetherness with my life partner that we hadn't enjoyed since, perhaps, the first decade of our L.O.N.G. association.  

But I got busy, with returning to the madness of the Scandinavian Festival and all, and never got around to composing that post.

So now we're a month in.  And let me say, my attitude has evolved just a bit.  Perhaps back in the direction of not precisely knowing how we're going to navigate this having the old man underfoot 24/7.

I find that I'm having a bit of trouble giving up my solitary life built around staying out from under his feet while he was working.  I could pretty much pick up and go anywhere I wanted, any time, and not worry that I was leaving him at loose ends (or free to park in his recliner and stare at the tv all day and all evening, which he tended to do when left unattended.)

It's not that we have nothing to do.  There are so many projects around the house and our small business that need doing, we should have work lined up for the next four or five years, at least.  

It's just that we tend to lose focus when one of us isn't behind the other, pushing, cajoling and maybe a little bit of kicking in the pants.

The end result is, after conquering the challenge of the Scandinavian Festival, we've been kind of flailing around, bouncing off little projects, and not accomplishing a whole lot of anything.

This will never do.

I can only have faith that we're going to eventually haul ourselves up on to the right track and start pulling like a team.  While leaving each of us time and space for individual projects.

A tall order, maybe.  But I think we can handle it. 

Feeling Every Year Of It

 There aren’t enough candles in the world…

I actually posted this on Instagram...hoping to stimulate those who perhaps should remember my birthday to actually remember it.  Let's just say I had no success with that. 

I don't like to acknowledge that some members of what should be my "inner circle" are sucking black holes of self-absorption...

But if the shoe fits...

Sigh.

I had a good birthday, anyway.  Celebrated with those in my life who are not sucking black holes.

So, quit whining!  Glass half full and all that.  Right?

Celebrating “Freedom” in a World Gone Mad

Witnesses Describe Scene of Mass Shooting at Highland Park Fourth of July Parade

This is the area of the country where I grew up.

My dad worked at Highland Park Hospital for over 30 years, from the 50’s to the 80’s.

I was born there.

In 1961, I stood with my older sisters in a blocks-long line along Second Street.  We stepped up to the Alcyon Theater ticket booth just after the last tickets to “101 Dalmatians” were sold to the family in front of us. 

Second Street.  

The very street where people were shot to bits this morning.

In the mid 70's, I met my future husband at the Highland Park K-Mart.  He worked there for ten years. 

I cannot believe this.

Our country has gone completely mad.

There is nothing

NOTHING

to celebrate here.

Remeber Ten Things?

Feeling a little cranky these days (ya think?) Summer is the absolute worst time of the year to live in a suburban neighborhood.  Now I know why folks go on vacation.  It's not to take a break from their jobs.  It's to get away from their neighbors.  So just for grins, let's compose a "ten things" about neighborhood living.   

Ten Things to Hate About Living in a Suburban Neighborhood

1    1.)Power washers—people will power wash anything: driveways, fences, decks, siding—usually starting at some ungodly hour in the morning, and droning on for H.O.U.R.S.

2   2.)Gas-Powered leaf blowers—the most ubiquitous form of traffic in neighborhoods is landscape maintenance trucks.  And every one of those million landscape trucks contains at least two gas-powered leaf blowers, often hauled out at the same time, for double the decibels.

3.  3.)Chain saws—someone always needs to cut down or trim a tree—at 7 am on a Sunday morning.

4   4.) The Fourth of July—Don’t get me started.

5   5.) Neighbors—Doers of all the above dastardly deeds.

6   6.) Neighbors’ dogs—barking at nothing, for hours.  Doing their business in neighbors’ yards. Declared by the owner to be “friendly” while foaming at the mouth, straining at the leash, obviously on the attack.

7   7.) On-street parking—Every house on the block has a double-wide, sometimes triple-wide, driveway.  Appearing as bleached concrete “moats” between the houses and the street, because , evidently, the street is where one parks cars.  Preferably not in front of one’s own home.

8   8.) Lawn maintenance…or not—None of the front yards on this block is larger than about 2000 square feet.  Not huge.  What is so hard about cutting the grass before it gets a foot high?

9   9.) Night marauders—the human kind.—Nothing is safe in your front yard or not locked up at night.  Things will disappear.  And cars parked on the street will be vandalized.  For no apparent reason, just for kicks. (Which leads one to wonder about the wisdom of the “park your car on the street” fetish…)

1   10.)Neighbors—Once again, those humans on the other side of the six-foot fences who believe the entire neighborhood exists for their pleasure and convenience.  Everyone else be damned.   

Borrowed From My Friend

I borrowed this from Jackie, who is still blogging away (much more faithfully than I, I'm afraid) at Walking With Hope.  

Memes being what they are, I honestly can't say for certain whether Dan George actually uttered or wrote these words.  

We tend to ascribe hyper-nobility to Native Americans (actually, George was born in Canada, so that would make him "First Nations".)  I'm not sure the humans indigenous to North America were any less...human...than the Europeans who exploited and ultimately destroyed them.  Perhaps their saving grace was that they were not as "civilized" as the Europeans when the two groups embarked upon their disastrous relationship.  "Civilization" encourages all the worst aspects of the human spirit...greed, selfishness, and the compulsion to dominate EVERYTHING being chief among those.  It seems the farther a culture is from what we think of as civilized, the less it is controlled by the mad drive to gather all the "goodies" for oneself  and beat the snot out of any challenger.  Still, it's not as if the indigenous people were strangers to the concepts of "enemies" and "war" before the Europeans invaded.  They just hadn't taken those concepts to the same level of mass destruction that the Europeans had (and would.) 

So I guess I call bullshit on the concept of all-good, all-loving and all-peaceful Native Americans.  Let's not romanticize them into something they were not.  Human beings are human beings.

However, all that doesn't really change the sentiment of the quote.  No matter who said it or invented it, it's beautiful and valid.  And is infinitely more worthy of spreading around than 99.99% of the garbage disseminated on the internet these days.

Can't hurt to spread a little love, can it?   

Not my Favorite Solstice

 

I am not a very good pagan.  In fact, I'm not sure I'm pagan at all.  Like every other term in the orbit of human religion, "pagan" has been co-opted by a subset of believers in a particular non-mosaic religious dogma; rather than referring to "a [any] person holding religious beliefs other than those of the main world religions," as pagan is defined in the Oxford dictionary.  

Nowhere is my lack of dutiful paganism more apparent than in my observance of solstice.  I'm all about the Winter Solstice.  I have my fire, I chant and sing, I symbolically burn the things that no longer serve.  Winter Solstice makes sense to me, it appeals to me to have a celebration right in the middle of my favorite time of year.  That I'm supposed to be celebrating the "return of the light" seems entirely beside the point.  I'm actually reveling in the starkness and darkness of the time of year that best speaks to my stage of life.    

I'm generally not in the mood to celebrate the summer solstice.  Summer lost its appeal for me a long time ago.  When I was immersed in a seasonal business, I was too busy during the summer to pay attention to much else.  Now that I'm semi-retired, summer is a time of year that is too hot, too fast, too noisy and too social for me.  

This year, our region of Oregon has had a wet, cold, depressing spring.  Every morning I get up and look at my weather app (I really should delete that thing, for all the good it is), and it either promises rain and unsettled weather, or it hints at a less than 50% chance of precipitation that gets quickly drowned in the quixotic reality of Oregon meteorology. Oddly enough, today--this year's Summer Solstice in the Willamette Valley--is the first day we've had unfettered sun in...it seems like months.  I suppose I should be grateful, and hopeful that today is a sign of better weather to come...but I'm just...meh.

What's to look forward to besides the constant crack of legal and illegal fireworks throughout the neighborhood between now and the end of August?  Or the stagnant heat that keeps me from getting a decent night's sleep?  Or needing to stay far away from any of Oregon's more beautiful natural areas, because this time of year they are crawling with tourists?  Or neighbors throwing noisy parties that might as well be right in my own back yard, in this environment of squished-together houses with tiny yards? Or being unable to enjoy the back yard on a summer evening without being beset by a horde of ravenous mosquitoes? I can think of SO many reasons that the thought of summer just leaves me cold.  Or wishing it WAS cold, anyway.

Be all that as it may, I'll wish all a Happy Solstice. Enjoy the summer, if that's what you're into.  Me?  I'll just put my head down and charge through it, until I can get to the time of year I really like.