Giving In to the Spinning World
Saturday, December 7, 2013 at 1:30AM 
I gave in a day early this year.
Thanksgiving Day is my holiday music demarcation line. No a-wassailing or fiiiive golden rings before the fourth Thursday in November, please. But Thanksgiving fell later than normal, and the weather had turned wintry, and I was tired of resisting the pull of holiday sparkle. So I gave in, all at once and happily.
But I'm slow to change with the seasons. I usually feel like I'm about a month behind. Just as I'm settling into menus of garden fresh tomatoes and sweet corn, the back-to-school commercials remind me that it's nearly soup time. I finallyfeel ready for fall at the beginning of November, when the splendor of autumn leaves has waned. Then it's Thanksgiving and already the world is on to Christmas. I look up and see that we're a week into December, and I realize we still haven't brought in the patio furniture, despite swearing we would this year before the first snowfall. As I write this, snow covers the table and the patio umbrella resting on the deck floor.
My birthday arrives at the end of next week (Friday the 13th!, which are good luck days for me). I never feel truly ready to think about Jesus' birthday until after I've celebrated my own. By then, there are only 12 days before Christmas, and then it's New Year's and the grey of January and bam: Happy Valentine's Day.
I'm trying to keep up with the turning of the seasons and calendar pages, this spinning wheel of a planet that flings us from month to month, year to year, closer and nearer to the sun, round and round she goes, where she stops, nobody knows. This is how we grow older: gradually, then suddenly*. I've been worrying about running out of time for awhile now.
But what's to be done about it? We spin with the world whether we want to or not. So I try to give in and go with it.
*This wonderful phrase is attributed to Hemingway, who answered thusly when he was asked "How did you go bankrupt? Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."
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