I've had to force myself to read the news of late. I find myself clicking on trashy quotes about celebrities even when I'm not sure if I know who they are. I make myself click over and read about France--oh, and about our great governor stating that Illinois won't accept Syrian refugees, and I just want to turn back to the marshmallow fluff of celebrity gossip. I can feel the sadness of the real news looming on the edges of my brain but I just don't want to even acknowledge it. I don't understand how our world can be becoming more fractured and dangerous instead of less. It makes me not want to send my boys out into the world even though I'm so proud of them as I watch them become adults and begin doing just that.

The early darkness and the grey skies don't help. I know some people don't like the holidays but it seems so completely instinctual to me to want to hang bright lights and distract ourselves from the darkness at this time of year. The older I get the more and more amazed I am by the rhythms of nature and the more it makes sense that we celebrate them in this way. Apart from any religious sense, it just seems that the winter earth, and our life in it, need light. The winter solstice demands a celebration of warmth. I don't begrudge the holidays. I want to cook and gather people near me. And so I continue to plan for Thanksgiving, even though I probably will do everything the same way I do every year....