Haibun: Winter Solstice
This coming week is the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year. The day after that is when each day starts to get longer than the day prior. Everything needed for summer is set into motion as the sun bends back into warmth. Sure, it will get colder over the next few months, because that momentum was set into motion the day after the summer solstice, and that momentum must run its course, but everything for a warm summer is in place.
Years ago I sat in the front seat of her car,—a woman I was closer to than I should have been—and explained this observation on a cold February day in Upstate New York. Everything around was snow and the cars in the parking lot were baptized in salt. Little did I know that what was underway wasn’t us coming together, but was taking us apart. But I explained it to her as if we would always be talking like this. I haven’t spoken to her in years.
So it goes in life, so much of what I live today was set into motion months ago and will change again from the unnoticed things of today. I always change and so I must try to be content in all things because I control so little of it.
centuries refined, in time
winter starts to climb
