Solstice
After the longest night, we awake to face the shortest day. Through a broken snore, my four-year-old suddenly shoots up from her slumber.
“Yesterday a lady bird lived on my elbow all day long!”
She tells me all about her lady bird friend—how she carried it on her elbow throughout the day, ensuring its safety, protecting it fiercely. How sad she was when it eventually flew away, no goodbye, not even a wave, but that she knew with great certainty it would be reunited with its red and black spotted family.
She wonders aloud how many brothers or sisters it has and where exactly it lives. A tiny ladybird cottage? We discuss the colours and shape of the cottage, the teeny size necessary for a bug so miniature and the materials of the structure itself—a small leafy frond for a roof and gravel-sized pebbles for the bricks.
The Winter Solstice is a time for introspection, renewal, honouring the cyclical nature of life, a moment of hope and new beginnings.
Unlike most mornings when we scramble to get ready for either daycare or kindergarten, Tuesdays are slow. We spend our time in bed as my daughter chatters and chirps away like a little house sparrow, telling me this thing and that – all terribly important and urgent when you’re four.
“Did you know we live on planet Earth and its green and blue and GINORMOUS?”
“So, the bee makes the honey and then the shopkeeper puts the honey on the shelf and that’s how the honey is made.”
On and on the chitter-chatter goes as I make her breakfast which she devours in record speed, and we get dressed for dance class. There is a gentle rhythm to our day that is reassuring for us both.
Tuesdays are for quiet synchronicity.
All the big feelings during the rest of the week, the meltdowns, the tantrums, the emotions of grand proportions because we must get to this destination and wear that and do this and do that, are nowhere to be seen. On Tuesdays we each exhale a breath we didn’t know we were holding. As I dress her in her tutu, we are stopped by the freshly scabbed scars lining her belly.
Yesterday was a difficult morning. Her overnight pull-up split upon waking, triggering a volcanic response: she wailed, screamed and flailed, sharply swiping at me as I tried to hold her and her feelings together. Her rage swiftly turned inwards as she clawed at her skin until it bled. I tried to anchor her feelings—feebly attempting to protect her from herself but I was unable to get close enough as she growled and spat at me. After ten minutes of scratching, I scream-cried at her to stop in a voice so sharp and otherworldly I scared us both into stunned silence.
This morning blood crusted tiger stripes track her belly. With shame in her eyes, she points them out to me.
“My tummy was feeling nervous. I was scared and angry.”
“Big feelings are fine, but please don’t hurt yourself. You scared me.”
It’s been years since one of her meltdowns compounded with the physical manifestation of self-harm.
“Sorry I scared you, mummy.”
As tears fall, I hold her tight.
The Winter Solstice signifies a spiritual turning point, marking the shortest day, longest night and the symbolic rebirth of the sun.
“When I grow up maybe I’ll marry a girl, or a boy, or maybe I’ll just marry Elsa.”
Swift as the wild winter wind, her sorrow is gone, the moment sufficiently unpacked, and off we go to dance class.
She spins with ribbony twirls, pirouetting with joy. I lock these magical moments away in my heart for fear of forgetting. These are the moments. The ones I’ll look back on, with such watery-eyed fondness that we were ever so lucky to have this sacred time together.
The Winter Solstice encourages letting go of what no longer serves, paving the way for brighter days and Spring’s return.
After class we zip up our puffer jackets right up to our chins. Our cheeks sting, with sideways rain lashing our faces as we sprint to the car.
Next stop: Nanny Maravene’s care home.
“I wonder if Nanny will say something today?”
Now in the final stages of her Alzheimer’s disease, Mum is mostly non-verbal. We head down the long corridor to the dementia wing. With bated breath, we enter her room. Mum looks right through us, not an ounce of recognition behind her eyes. Our shoulders slump and our hearts sink. I distract Thelma with a chocolate biscuit and a balloon. We play keepy-uppy to fill the heavy silence of the room.
Suddenly Mum gasps, pointing urgently at Thelma.
“It’s you! Oh my, it’s little you.”
She looks between Thelma and me. Back and forth her eyes dart. A lifetime of memory, jolting her into lucidity. The sound that exits my throat is raspy raw, a primal grief too heavy for words.
Thelma bear-grips me tightly, her hug hurried and unremitting.
Mum looks on, lovingly, longingly.
I know what she’s thinking, because I think it too.
If we could go back in time, before the dark winter of her decline, to the hopeful promise of the solstice.
Swift as the wild winter wind, her clarity returns to vacancy. Mouth agape, staring listlessly.
What I would give to be held in my mother’s arms
To start over again—
If only for a moment,
Just her and I, as little four-year-old me.
So, I hold tight to the moments, like Tuesdays with my Thelma, her stories of tiny cottages, bees and magical ladybird friends.
Grateful our journey is just beginning, while another season ends.
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