As we enter the longest night of the year, the Winter Solstice, while the early fading light shines mellowed, but golden, warm, I sit out back, in the “Gardens” of The Last Homely House.
Two weeks ago this evening, the temperature dropped to a chill thirty-four degrees, and Laredo, TX had the second snowfall in my lifetime.
Now it’s a mild seventy-four degrees, the leaves of The Three Sisters have finally yellowed and a few of their leaves sail softly down to the lawn below, to a slowly growing skirt splashed with hues of burnt orange, faded yellow, rich brown.
Texas Weather.
And with the oncoming long night fast approaching, my mind circles back up on itself to time.
How little time we have of it.
How there are no reboots.
Are you constantly looking to the future, eyes excited but narrowed from all the battles of will it will take to make your name?
Or is it more of a lazy vague daydream – like job, wife, money?
Or do you look back, to the past obsessing over past glories or past horrors with equal attention?
How do you spend your time?
What tense do you live?
Do you live in the past while you’re in your present?
Or do you spend your now thinking of later?
All we have is the now.
This moment, where you’re reading this – are you happy with everything around you?
Will you accept it if you’re not?
Or what will you do?
You have the now.
You have the moment.
Live in it.
Be in it.
Be.
Now begins The Long Night, here in South Texas.
How will you live it?
Happy Winter Solstice – Live the Long Night Well!
