It is difficult to tell from this photograph whether the ice is forming, or melting.

 

This week we in the northern hemisphere crossed a threshold of darkness. In small increments, the light is returning. The winter solstice is the blackest night of the year and even with modern means of illumination it is oppressive.

 

The blinking lights on many houses up and down the road are festive, and render an evening drive jolly. There is still a pang of guilt tethered into seeing them, though, because of a not quite faded memory. My mother's last manic episode erupted when my twins were toddlers, and my ability to cope was frayed. She asked, almost demanded that I drive her around to see the decorations. A small request, in the scheme of things. Yet after a day of wrangling three kids whose main form of entertainment was to run from me in the parking lot, I was not in the mood.

 

I am, it turns out, in the mood now.  But she is gone.

 

Mental illness, physical pain, financial stress all cloud over us in ways that keep out the light. When we are drenched in them it seems unlikely that we will ever recover. Yet astonishingly, the axis of our world spins in what feels like a snail's pace but is actually thousands of miles a second. 

 

I suppose I could let go of the guilt because now my mother has enough light to obliterate fear. Enough warmth to melt an iceberg.