Merry belated Yule!
Last year the weather was awful, to the point that we couldn't go up the mountain to watch the sunrise. This year, the weather made up for it (not that Charlie would appreciate such anthropocentrism) and our trip up the mountain was gorgeous--clear and cold under fading stars, and just enough cloud at the horizon to turn red and gorgeous. The was after, of course, we stayed up all night partying in the Great Hall.
And, as per tradition, when we got back after seeing the sun up, we found the Great Hall transformed by the Sprouts, who had appeared from seemingly out of nowhere (they'd been up in the master's dorm all night having a separate party with the masters), putting out gift bags for everyone for us to run around and find and all the fixings for a lovely breakfast. Then we sat around for most of the rest of the day eating, drinking hot cocoa, and playing with our new toys--yes, toys. Mostly stocking-stuffer type things--Rubix cubes, playing cards, novelty socks, candy, slide whistles, and so on. They weren't random, each of us got things we actually liked. Among other things, I got a new mini tape measure, because my old one I use for plant ID has started to lose its paint. June got a second-hand deck of Goddess cards.
Also, we sat around taking naps. I think most of us crashed out on the floor for at least a few hours. A few people went upstairs to bed. Greg zonked out sitting up on the sofa with a cheap Santa Clause hat pulled down over his eyes. I sat with him for a while, him sleeping, me sitting there staring into a mug of hot cocoa, wondering if I'd be asleep soon, too. I was sitting there when Greg woke up.
He gave a start, though I can't think why--there was no particular noise to wake him or anything like that--pulled the hat off his eyes, and looked around in a rather confused way for a few seconds, then realized where he was, I guess, and smiled.
"Um, good morning, Daniel," he said. "What time is it?"
"Around 11:30, I think?"
He nodded, still putting himself together.
"It feels later," he said.
"Greg? People don't nap this much after Litha, do they? I never really thought about it before." Litha, you may remember, is the summer solstice, another occasion we mark with an all-night party. Greg shrugged.
"I don't think as many people stay up," he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose behind his glasses. "The summer dance is spread out across the campus, so it's harder to notice if someone drops out to sleep. And we don't really spend the next day together in the same way, so again who is doing what is less obvious."
"I'm sorry, Greg. I shouldn't be questioning you, you're asleep."
"No, no, it's OK. You can question me while I'm asleep." And he sat back on the couch again and closed his eyes. I thought he was indeed asleep again until he opened one eye quite suddenly and looked at me. "I don't promise to answer, though," he said. And then the eye closed and I think he was indeed asleep again soon.
I got up again and wandered around with my hot cocoa until I found June at the Yule tree looking intently at one of the glass bird ornaments.
"They really should put a warning on the hot pepper candies," she said, without looking up at me.
"Fire and sweetness," I said, "the themes of the holiday. The day itself is a warning."
"My mouth sympathizes with Icarus." Icarus flew too close to the sun, remember.
"Want me to kiss it better?" I offered.
"No, and you don't want to, either. Your mouth would end up hurting. You can find me some alcohol to cut the heat, though."
"I actually can," I said, and went off to beg a shot from a novice who had brought a flask. Later, June and I sat at a little table looking out together.
"What are we going to do next year?" I asked.
"Anything we want to," June hazarded.
"I mean about Yule. You remember celebrating it with me before I got back here? No, you don't, because we didn't. Because I always forgot, every single year I was away from this place. And I missed it so much. I missed Yule. It's just hard to do without the community."
"We could visit campus for Yule," she pointed out.
"That's not really my point. Anyway, if we don't come here for Yule, we'll be able to visit your family for Christmas. And if we do come here for Yule, how will we remember to prepare for it and set aside time for it if we're not on campus in the run-up to it? It's like...neither of us celebrated Yule before we came here, and I didn't celebrate it when I left. How do we take what we learned here and bring it with us? I want to stay involved with the community, I don't want to be dependent on it. I don't want to feel institutionalized." I have no idea where any of this was coming from. My feelings about getting my green ring, something I've been thinking a lot about lately, are complex.
"Coming here wasn't my first time celebrating Yule," June said, still looking outside through the big window.
"Oh?"
"It was the first time I'd done a big production of it, but there was this time--I was in grad school, the year before you got there, and I was just seriously overworked, exhausted all the time, and a bunch of self-doubt started coming up, and it was just bad. So I did a couple of therapy sessions, you know, with the psych students?" Our grad school also had a psychology department and lots of student therapists looking for practice. "Well, this one day, everything was just going wrong. My car broke down, but I had to get to campus because I was supposed to have a meeting with my study group from some class, so I biked it, but it was raining, one of those long, slow, cold rains, you know? and I get there soaked to the skin and freezing, except my study group isn't there because I'd written down the date wrong or something, and then I try to go to the store to pick up some things, except I discover I'd lost my wallet, so I went back to campus to look for my wallet, maybe it fell out of my bag when I was looking for my notes on the meeting, and I spent so long looking for my damn wallet that by the time I remembered I had therapy that day my session was half-over, which was just awful, because I really needed some therapy, and--"
And I had no idea where this long and grammatically inconsistent tale of woe was going or what it had to do with Yule, but June usually does have a point when she talks, so I waited and listened and tried to keep track of all the twists and turns of the plot.
"So I finally get into therapy, find my therapist still waiting for me, hasn't cancelled or anything, and I just fall into her arms blathering and sobbing about everything that's going wrong. And after listening to me go on for a while and letting me calm down, she said 'There's a reason why today is the worst day of the year.' And I say 'what's that?' and she said 'Because it's the shortest.' And so we talked about what that meant for a few minutes and she takes me through this little ritual thing and I start to feel a little better. She offered to give me and my bike a ride home. I accepted--I was still cold and wet--and on our way out I found the rain had turned to snow."
I said nothing. I understood her, but I couldn't think of anything that needed saying. I took her hand and thought about things. I wasn't worried as much anymore.
No comments:
Post a Comment