Turning Toward the Light

The days have grown as short as the year, and the compulsion to analyze and distill the essence of the year has come upon me. I can’t even say where this instinct comes from, only that it’s as inborn as a bird’s instinct to fly south. Perhaps it’s the end to the ebbing of days, and our turning toward the light. The beginning of the great renewal as we climb out of the imbalance of darkness and back into the sun where we belong.

It’s always struck me as strange that Winter should begin on the shortest day of the year. Like it shouldn’t be the beginning of a great cycle toward the longest day, but the completion of the cycle toward the shortest. Yet the long, cold nights and the frigid, icy days seem to deepen as the time goes on, not lessen as the increase of daylight would seem to necessitate. Yet nature, in her infinite wisdom, has seen fit for these beginnings and endings to sit right next to each other in harmony, even as we kick and scream our way through. There’s an old adage that says that an ox and donkey know their masters and where they are fed, but men do not know it. How true that seems today, of all days.

Every year, as I contemplate theses cycles—these wheels within wheels—I find something to bless, some grace and synchronicity that has chased along at my heels, and gratitude is all I find within me. But this year it occurred to me that though these cycles may be well-nigh eternal, they are only cycles for the world, not really for us as individuals. For us, the seasons aren’t part of an ever-turning wheel, but of an arc, with an ascent, an apogee, and a waning to a close. Our lives following the Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter as we gather the rosebuds while we may.

I’ve been aware for some time now that I’ve stepped into the Autumn of my life, and I find it to be a wonderful season. Insecurities, fears, and anxieties have given way to graceful acceptance of what is, and the calm power to steady-on, come what may. I’ve never been better at recounting my blessings and rehearsing all of the good that attends the passing of my days here, and choosing to see the good instead of the bad. That’s been an especially good skill to have this year, as they closing of 2018 has seen some deep disappointments. A falling out with a dear friend, being passed over for a well-deserved promotion, and the sudden confrontation with the mortality of my loved ones have all served to put a damper on the season.

But we most often find what it is we’re looking for, only to miss all the things that pass us by unawares. And since I’m on the lookout for the blessings, for the abundance, and for all the ways that life is on my side, that’s most often what I find. The heartaches and disappointments were not all that happened this year: I traveled to Alaska, Arkansas, California, Oklahoma, and Washington in 2018, and while I may have missed this shot at the brass ring, I got a better raise than my boss did, because he made sure of it. I made amends for a grievous wrong done in my youth. I held my first niece in my arms and welcomed my first nephew into adulthood, along with his first tattoo. Listening to him play the solo from Master of Puppets meant more to me than any promotion could.

Holding my niece Jade for the first time at Thanksgiving, sitting in the living room as the extended family ate, was a highlight of a lifetime. A soft, warm little bundle that couldn’t hold her head up and barely open her eyes, she purred and cooed her way through the hour that I held her, her little cartoon snores almost more than my heart could bear. It was one of those moments that you reflect back on and realize that it was the whole point of our existence here, except that I was well aware of it as it was happening. That’s what I mean by the joy of the Autumn, I don’t wait for the moment to pass to appreciate it in the sepia light of nostalgic reflection.

As I was holding her, I was subsumed by the love of my wife’s family, listening to the music of their conversation, the clink of their classes, the ting of their cutlery, as the symphony of our lives together played. I perfectly perceived the subtext of the friction between them, as they disagree on matters spiritual, political, and cultural, as the bumped off each other in conversation, knowing well which of them is annoyed by the other and how hard they are each working to leave things unsaid. But we have the rare gift of being able to vehemently disagree and then go right back to our meals, anecdotes, and fellowship. And I’m reminded again that none of it matters because love covers over the multitude of our sins.

And while my nephew Trevor got a tattoo that neither his Opa nor my wife approve of, he still helps his Opa up off the couch and kisses him atop his head as he towers over him, and thus the cycle completes itself. The boy that Opa held in his arms now hauls him to his feet with ease, even as Opa is finishing the arc that Trevor is beginning. I like to think that I’m somewhere in the middle between them, but I know that I’m closer to Opa than to Trevor on the trajectory of our lives here. I don’t know how I caught up to him, but somehow I have—as every session in the barber’s chair reminds me, since I well recall when Opa’s hair was the salt and pepper that mine is now. But hearing Trevor tell Opa unbidden that he loves him completed a circuit for me, and I told Trevor for the first of many times to come what a good man he is.

Between Jade and Trevor, two moments have redeemed all others in this year. In the shadow of these things I can hardly remember anything else, even as I turn toward the light. Always toward the light.