It is (well… was…) solstice, the shortest day of the year. The end of the shortening days and the beginning of the lengthening days. It seemed appropriate to pull out my Rachmaninoff’s Vespers today. Vespers comes at the beginning of the liturgical day (“evening,” for whatever reason). Somewhere in the liner notes, it mentioned that it’s actually not a vespers, but an all-night vigil, starting with vespers and moving through the night to matins. I got the CD on M1′s first? second? Xmas. I’d just returned to work & was figuring out how to work half a day from home & half in the office. My morning routine was to get up around 5:30am (yeah, I know, me!), put on Vespers & start the computer, and start work, hopefully while M1 slept a little longer. There’s something perfect about listening to this work, still dark outside, and quiet, light slowly dawning on the world.
When I put it on this afternoon, as I wrapped presents, it pushed me unexpectedly into year end reflection mode. It seems a little early for it, yet there it was. I thought about how my life has changed since a decade ago when I was learning to balance work, learning to be a parent, trying to figure out so much about how I was going to structure a life, a family life and how much I’ve done over the last decade. It seems like I’ve come a long ways when I listen to Vespers and breathe for a moment.
I’ve always taken this time of year off, from Xmas eve to New Year’s Day since M1 was born. Partly because my birthday falls in that time, partly because there’s just so much family stuff that happens (and now with my s-i-l’s b-day two days before mine, there’s even more), and partly because it’s my time, a gift to myself to pause, reflect, take stock in the past year & take a deep breath before jumping back into the fray to push through another year.
This year I’ll be actively checking in on work more than I have in the past. Everyone on my team wanted to go home for Xmas (I hope everyone gets to where they’re going to safely!), so the deal I made was that it was fine — but we *all* needed to check in just a couple times a day & make sure the immediate stakeholder requests were getting taken care of. The other stuff can wait until the new year. I will fully take my birthday off. I have no intention of looking at work on that day. Hopefully the work intrusions over the next two or so weeks will be minimal.
But reflection has definitely set in early. I think at least in part because of the snow. It comes and goes and comes again. I’ve never seen the snow here so deep. It just keeps coming and every now and then the news says, ‘oh, it’ll warm up…’ and then the next forecast pushes the snow out even further. And I’m in reflection mode and the most I can muster up about it is that it’s just how it is right now and I turn to reflect on other things.
It feels strange to realize, again, that I haven’t been breathing. Enough to keep propelling me forward, but not whole breaths. It’s nice to breathe again, at least a little more frequently. And to watch the snow drift down into little boot prints outside.
But now, before this reflectiveness becomes an all-night vigil for me, though I’d like to sit and just sit and listen to nothing and look at nothing and just breathe… it’s time to shift to bed. Matins always comes too early for this night owl…
