Winter Solstice

I'm glad that today marks the shortest day of the year. 

I'm not particularly happy when the days are shorter, even if the temperatures are mild, as they've been this year.  It's still dark when I get up, and dark before I finish cooking dinner.

Yes, I remember my days in Germany when it was even darker, and the light was for a shorter period of time, and I now imagine my friends elsewhere in Northern Europe (Ireland, the Netherlands, UK) enveloped in the dark, but...  I'm glad the days will be getting longer.

We have often been off to much brighter places by now, having traveling at winter break, as academics for decades, without family obligations around holidays.

Home this year, in the mountains, for the first time, it's interesting to mark the solstice, and the holiday season.  Neither of us are religious at all, now in midlife, but we've grown up with the secular traditions of Christmas, and my gardening companion, with the traditions of Catholic celebrations behind him -- well, we enjoy marking the transition of Christmas and New Year's wherever we've been in the world. And we'll do that here in our mountain town in Western North Carolina.

That's often included Christmas Eve masses in small parish churches in Latin American countries, or a massive one in Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, or a freezing one in Rome, up on the hill, on a trip to Italy after 9/11.

Lights in Hoi An

But what I'm remembering this evening is a wonderful Full Moon celebration in Hoi An, Vietnam.

We had wonderful trips there over two travel seasons.

Traveling

For the first time in many years, we're not traveling over winter break, staying at home in the mountains of Western North Carolina.

The academic schedule of decades has yielded now in "graduation" to a more flexible one, so mid-January to early February is a more appealing time to travel, and escape the relatively mild winters for a few weeks, before spring wildflower season begins, not so long afterwards.

Curiously, FB keeps reminding me of my posts last year, as we were about to head off (to far south, in Argentina and Chile), so that has me thinking about conundrums of travel.

Travel brings such a widening perspective, where ever we go.  If more Americans traveled, I think it would bring more scope to how we perceive "immigrants"and "refugees."

My great-great grandmother left Germany in 1848, with her five young sons, to escape the draft into the Kaiser's army (at least that's how the story is told).  They established the Wagner Brothers Clothing Store in Ellinwood, Kansas as adults.

"Quality has no substitute" was their motto.

Coming down Healy Pass

My gardening companion took this photo (with my iPhone) coming down Healy Pass on the Beara Peninsula, on his way back to meet me after my writer's retreat.

Coming down Healy Pass

We looped back through the pass again on our way back, through the Dingle Peninsula, and then back to Shannon and home.

Here at home, there's fall color, still lots of leaves left on trees, and final green beans to harvest. But that waits for another post.

The western Atlantic coast of Ireland we visited, and especially the southwestern coast and peninsulas where we spent the most time, were magical.  

Traveling

Heading off tomorrow is a familar dance -- of preparation, both for travels and at home. House sitter and plants - check; last vegetables harvested and cooked - check. Refrigerator empty of things that could moulder away - check.

But the more interesting reflection is around the journeying.  Heading to a developed country (Ireland), where they speak English, is hardly as challenging as traveling in the developing world, but perhaps that's a good thing.  We'll be able to enjoy the fellowship as well as the spectacular scenery!

Ireland will be a lovely country to visit, I'm totally sure.  It'll be free-wheeling, with a rental car, anchored by a 5-day retreat in the Beara Peninsula. 

It's reminding me of previous (solo) trips to England and Germany, for some reason.

I'm taking much the same gear, but not my old digital camera -- it'll be the iPhone this time along with our small Panasonic.

This was my gear in England, on a self-guided garden study tour several years ago.  It's the same for this trip, minus the acquired Kew Gardens tote and the BGCI bag, which I still use for all sorts of things, but including a small backpack (for the laptop, ugh, which I'm bringing because of the retreat, and its voice to text capabilities).  Only when there's a car in the plan does a laptop make sense anymore.

In recent travels, I've just taken an iPad with a camera connector.  But it's time to upgrade all of these devices.  Hhrmph.  This will be the first trip, however, with a smart phone -- I'll swap out the SIM card in Ireland for a local one, for data access on the road.