midnight of the year

Happy New Year, Gentle Reader. I just put together the January edition of Clay and Words News, my newsletter (are you subscribed yet? You can do so over here: https://amovitam.ca/newsletter/).

Red Bench Cottage, 5x6x5″, stoneware, the feature piece of “From the Studio” in the January newsletter. The fairies are chopping wood to keep warm.

It’s very January-ish around here right now, dark and cold. Although it hasn’t been nearly as cold as is normal for this time of year, the lack of snow makes things seem even darker than usual. We still need the electric lights on at 8AM, and of course turn them back on by at least 4PM. Good thing we’re past solstice, and it’ll only get brighter from here on.

Every January I wonder how our ancestors lived through that dark season, with nothing but candles to illuminate their houses, and poor quality candles at that. Beeswax was expensive even then, reserved for the church and rich people (Jane Austen, Emma: “Wax-candles in the schoolroom! You may imagine how desirable!”), and from what I understand, tallow candles, which ordinary people used, don’t give a very clear light. Never mind rush lights, which are about the equivalent of a tiny flashlight with the battery in its death throes.

I was reminded of a post I wrote a few years ago right around this time, when I realized that January is, in fact, the Midnight of the Year. The tiredness so many of us in the more Northern latitudes feel right now, and the urge to just curl up with a blanket and a good book and not move until spring, might well have a good reason, and perhaps instead of fighting them it would be worth humouring our desires. It’s probably healthier for body and soul.

As per usual, the cat has the right idea. I think I’ll go follow his example.

Life, the Universe, and the Midnight of the Year. Stay warm and carry on.

Steve is giving me dirty looks, guilt tripping me because I haven’t posted anything on this blog in, like, forever.

Well, my excuse is that I was sick over the holidays. Two nasty bouts of flu in the space of a month. And then, somehow, I just didn’t get back on the horse…

Steve’s having none of it (stuffed bears can be so demanding!). But there I was yesterday, looking out the picture window at the view of the lake, a thick white cloud hanging so low over it it feels like I’m sitting in a kettle with the lid clapped on.

The cosiness of December has given way to cold, muck and dreariness, and it feels like I haven’t seen the sun or the blue sky in weeks. (“There is no sun. … There never was a sun,” said the Witch. “No, there never was a sun,” said the Prince, and the Marsh-wiggle, and the children…) All I want to do is to curl up on the couch with my fluffy reading socks on my feet and my fluffy reading blanket over my lap, reading a fluffy novel.

And then it all of a sudden struck me: maybe that’s just what we’re meant to do this time of year? Maybe so many of us feel tired and unmotivated in winter because it’s the time when we’re supposed to sleep. This is, in fact, the midnight of the year.

Or, rather, winter solstice is midnight. I learned in Physical Geography class some years ago that the hottest time is actually just after the zenith, and the coldest immediately after the nadir. So, the hottest time of day is around 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon, and the coldest time of night an hour or two after midnight – once the temperature has had time to catch up with the amount of sunshine the earth got (or didn’t get, as it were). If you correlate the cycle of the year to the hours of the day, then right now, January 18th, is about 1:50 AM.

And what else are you supposed to do at Ten-to-blinkin’-Two in the Morning other than sleep? Human beings are diurnal – we’re awake in the day, and sleep in the night. At least that’s what we’re designed for, notwithstanding Mr Edison and his light bulb which screwed us all over with its perpetual artificial daytime.

And so maybe that craving for fluffy socks and blankets and books is, in fact, quite normal and healthy, and ought to be indulged as much as possible. You know how, when your kids get up in the middle of the night, you roll over and just sort of grunt at them “Go back to sleep!”? Like that.

So bring on the socks and blankets and Pride and Prejudice. I’ll talk to you in the morning – umm, I mean in spring.

Life, the Universe, and the Midnight of the Year. See you when the sun comes up.