December 21, 2016, Prescott-  So, from today, our days will be getting ever  so slightly longer, with minute temperature changes a-coming, until June 21.  One of the kids asked about the Southern Hemisphere, and learned that the days in Australia,  most of South America and much of Africa, will now be getting shorter, until that same date, next year.

I was in Sydney, once, in mid-September, 1971, and enjoyed a mild Spring week.  I even had a few hours at Bondi Beach, and didn’t need a sweater, on the hydrofoil to Taronga Park.  Our seasons aside, I felt rather at home “Down Under”, and will someday make my way again to those parts, and to many others, for the first time.

Enough of things about which I can do nothing.  I’d rather focus on the emotional solstices that we seem to experience.  A few questions for thought:  How often have friends, some of them trusted, turned aside for the least perceived slight?  How often have friendships turned, because of unshared convictions, or a feeling that perhaps one is no longer “useful”?  How often has a friend looked upon you as a surrogate, either for a lost loved one, or for the person him/herself?

I am comfortable in many climates, and in many situations.  It’s something to which I have gravitated, all my life.  My peculiar form of loyalty is to humanity, as a whole- so slights are forgiven, secrets are kept, and often forgotten, and people are valued, even when they forget to value themselves.  I guess this is a fine way of remaining adaptable to both earthly and human environments.

Human seasons continue to come and go.  May they become milder, in tone and sharper, in meaning.