Light in this never ending shade

The light showed up on my kitchen table. As it had been a while since we’d seen each other, I stopped, stared, and watched it move with purpose toward the other side.

The morning sun dappled through the lead-glass pane and beckoned me, so I dropped everything, closed my laptop, found my coat and followed, disregarding deadlines, dishes, dinner and a “disintegrating dipstick” in my beloved blue car.

I felt like I was saying hello to a couple of old friends as I made my way south toward the river — sunshine and my shadow.

“Long time no see,” I said cheerfully and I skipped a little as I picked up my pace.

It’s been a peculiar January in Wisconsin, warmer than normal but shadier too, a confounding mixture that has left sledhills shredded bare and ice rinks unfinished. An unseasonable fog swirled around us for a while too, making navigation difficult around slippery spots and blind corners.

So, it seemed like a special treat to stride forward with purpose, to look people in the eyes as they passed by and share compliments about the world around.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” we, who understand the fickleness of seasons, agreed as we walked with our faces pointed up.

Clouds pushed their way forward by the time I turned around and headed back toward home, but I didn’t mind at all because the winter solstice has come and gone.

And, as a wise and talented poet recently said,

There is always light.

if only we’re brave enough to see it

If only we’re brave enough to be it.