This week is always the weirdest. Foggy, disorienting, cozy, lovely. I can’t decide if I need to travel next year or take the week off from work or repeat this year’s events… I floated through halls and offices, visiting with coworkers, taking extra time with patient care, and then slipped out early most days to hang with my family before the sun set.
“Plants and animals don’t fight the winter; they don’t pretend it’s not happening and attempt to carry on living the same lives that they lived in the summer. They prepare. They adapt. They perform extraordinary acts of metamorphosis to get them through. Winter is a time of withdrawing from the world, maximising scant resources, carrying out acts of brutal efficiency and vanishing from sight; but that’s where the transformation occurs. Winter is not the death of the life cycle, but its crucible.”
— Katherine May
Winter Solstice tells us we have turned another year. I had no idea I’d grow to treasure this day when I first moved to Alaska. I love this place and its people, and the person I am becoming thanks to both. Thanks, God.
Today my husband started counseling for the first time ever and loved it, but didn’t want to talk about it. Tonight I made tissue paper lanterns for our solstice party with friends, where we will look at each other in the cold dark and whisper we have turned another year. I am proud of both.
Currently reading/recently-ish finished:
Outlawed, Anna North
On Rotation, Shirlene Obuobi
Straight A Leadership, Quint Studer
Good to Great and the Social Sectors, Jim Collins
The House in the Cerulean Sea, TJ Klune
The Bird Way, Jennifer Ackerman
Ithaca, Claire North
Wintering, Katherine May
A Thousand Ships, Natalie Haynes
No Ego, Cy Wakeman
The Hotel Nantucket, Elin Hilderbrand
#getaftergrateful 2022 community life lately marriage motherhood the whole & simple gospel
December 16, 2022
I surprise myself every time I reference my baby and someone asks about her age. Good gracious, she’ll be ten on her next birthday. And then we attend events like our church staff Christmas party tonight and hold actual babies and remember how intense those years were and how quickly they’ve passed. I miss those days and I love the ones I’m in now.
We wrapped the Nutcracker today. We wrapped the college course I taught tonight. So much community, so many feelings, so much bittersweet relief. I’m glad my kids get to watch me say yes, and I’m glad my kids get to watch me end things as well.
My baby has taken to the stage like no creature I’ve ever seen. I wasn’t prepared for her to not need my help for a single second. From costume changes to choreography, she leans on her fellow cast members and waves a glittery I love you at me as she floats by. This is soul-shaking in the best way.