Solstice!
I've been counting down the weeks and the days. Woke up this morning and realized that in just a bit over 11 hours (as I write this), at 10:08 p.m. California time, we'll reach the solstice, and days are going to start getting longer again. This will make me very happy.
Somehow it hadn't occurred to me 'til this morning to wonder about the etymology of the word "solstice." I looked it up, then started to post it in this entry, then realized that it's exactly the sort of thing that belongs in my sadly neglected wordblog, Neology. So I posted it over there instead.
I know I quoted this a few weeks ago already, and I don't want to dull it by overuse, but I'm nonetheless going to once again post my favorite lines from Susan Cooper's poem "The Shortest Day":
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
(Btw, heard Cooper and Gregory (Wicked) Maguire in a discussion of writing fantasy on NPR a few weeks back; interesting stuff, though there probably wasn't much that would be new to those of you who read and/or write fantasy.) (There doesn't seem to be a version of that discussion online, but maybe there will be at some point? Not sure. You can also buy it on CD from the Cambridge Forum site.)
Apologies as always to y'all Southern Hemispherians for my delight about this, given that y'all's days will now be getting shorter.
