On the Shortest Day of the Year

Note: I wrote this 12 years ago and usually perform it near the end of the year at a storytelling show. This year, I’m sharing it here. Happy Solstice to all!

The Arctic Circle is an imaginary line around the globe that connects the southernmost places where the sun does not rise on the Winter Solstice (and does not set on the Summer Solstice). So above the Arctic Circle, you have days of continuous sunlight in the summer and continuous darkness in the winter.

Depending on the time of year, this either makes the northernmost areas either the best or worst places on Earth to hide from vampires.

In Nome, Alaska on Winter Solstice the sun is only up for three hours and 53 minutes and never gets up high in the sky. In Stöðvarfjörður, Iceland (where I took the above photo of first light), the sun is only up for three hours and 42 minutes on Winter Solstice. In both places, the sun rises a little, flounders for a while, then gives up and sets.

I might be anthropomorphizing a bit.

The Winter Solstice is not a time for mourning, it’s a time for celebrating.

Think of it as Yoga for the Earth.

Breathe in. Hold. Breathe out. Hold.

Align chakras up from the magma at the center of the planet to the highest mountain peaks.

Most of the year we’re breathing in. Or we’re breathing out.

Twice a year, we hold. In the holding, magic can happen.

In the pause, anything’s possible. All over the world.

The Druids knew this. So they celebrated the holding.

This story starts with a girl.

Now, arguably, all stories start with a girl.

But especially this one.

A girl. In knee-high boots.

And for those of you who think there are no seasons in Los Angeles, you’ve clearly missed the switch from Sandal Season to Knee-High-Leather-Boot Season.

So this girl in the boots was at a party. Standing in the corner.

Talking about poetry. The lines of a haiku. The imagery of the Beats. The way a stanza stretches and curves to accommodate the listener. The fragrant sultry popping of P words and the lush liquid sound of the Ls. The magic of metaphor and the misery of misaligned pentameter.

Long after she’s gone, the conversation lingers.

And you sit in bed at night, listening to the world. Wondering if she’s listening too. Or if she’s at another party. Enchanting the guests with her talk of poetry, her poetry of talk.

You imagine her suitors lined up in the hallway. Each anxious to impress her with their soft similes, their intricate rhyme schemes, their mastery of the Onegin Stanza, and their seductive dissection of their imagined poetics.

Or is she oblivious? Spreading her gospel of poetry, then moving on to the cool ascetic prose of a monastic life?

It’s hard to know.

But not impossible.

After months of losing light, we pause. And in the pause we reflect light outwards. And then we start the long, slow process of gaining light, building back towards a period of growth. It’s slow at first and the progress isn’t always obvious from day to day. We gather, we collect. Later we plant. And grow. Then harvest.

We stop and change course during the pauses. And that’s where the rules are thrown out.

Years later, I saw her at another party.

Talking sonnets to the hostess.

So I asked her about the poetry, about the effects on the other guests, about the ascetic prose, about her worship of the internal rhyme.

And she swept up her hair, curled a long length behind her ear, and looked at me quizzically. “I just like poetry,” she said. “There’s nothing magical or amazing about it, I just like poetry.”

There’s a road in Alaska that goes north from Fairbanks, past the Arctic Circle, up to the northernmost ocean in the world. On that road is the northernmost spruce tree in America. A helpful sign near the tree says “Do Not Cut.” Every year on Winter Solstice, a small group gathers at the tree. They pause, they chant, but they do not cut.

In Iceland, there’s a town in the Westfjords that is technically below the Arctic Circle, but they have continuous darkness for weeks because the sun never gets above the mountain that keeps the town in shadowy darkness. They celebrate the Solstice there – then celebrate “Sunshine Day” in January with a pancake breakfast. On the first day the sun peeks over the mountains, they pause. And then they eat. Pancakes.

And she turned back to the hostess. And I saw she was still wearing the knee-high leather boots.

And I knew she was wrong. It wasn’t just something she liked. It wasn’t merely something to talk about. For her, poetry was all about taking the magic she felt and bringing it to others. And for anyone who talked to her, her enthusiasm and love translated directly into desire and happiness.

None of which she knew about.

And the men she chose were unworthy of her, unable to give her poetry in romance or romance her with poetry. So she redirected the line of suitors to another hallway, one she dreamed of but never actually walked down. Not even while wearing those knee-high boots.

And that, somehow, was the most beautiful and saddest poetry of all.

While others lament the shortest day of the year and wonder where their sun has gone, the Druids knew the Solstice was a special time.

So they’d pause.

Yoga for the Earth. Hold the position. Breathe in. Hold.

This is a time when your stars are aligned. So go into the world.

And make your own magic.

[Image of Iceland’s Arctic Henge was photographed by Eric Cooper. Actic Henge is a huge sundial in a remote area of Northern Iceland, where shadows pass at precise points through the stone gateways at various times of year. The structures incorporate elements of Icelandic myths and folklore. You can learn more about Arctic Henge here. Photo used under Creative Commons Attribution License.]

This story first appeared in my essay collection No, Mr. Bond, We Expect Your Dreams to Die (Analog Stories for a Digital World). You can find it here.