Night Light

Hello, friend. Thank you for joining me here!

When I had a newborn, someone told me, “The days are long, but the years are short.” At first, when I heard that, I was so tired and filled with postpartum turmoil that I could only grasp the long days piece. But as those insane 24 hour cycles of intense care and epic lifestyle changes extended over weeks and months, I caught on. Suddenly my tiny baby was lifting her head, then rolling over, then sitting up, then crawling, and I could barely keep up. When things change incrementally, you do not always notice how far you’ve come until some milestone slaps you in face. The days of early childhood feel especially long because they consume the parent(s) so completely. One falls into time, and it becomes a web that stretches impossibly wide—wide enough to hold all that is new and hard and beautiful and impossible and miraculous, and just plain exhausting. It is so much to experience that each second fills to near bursting. 

During the pandemic, which at our house we’ve referred to as ‘The Staying Home Time,’ I have often felt similarities to that infant season. We were stuck inside, for one. With babies, the doctors tell you to stay home for at least the first 6 weeks, with the exception of pediatric visits, in order to minimize exposure to germs. Babies don’t have developed immune systems and many illnesses that adults can handle easily would put a young child at serious risk. This whole idea creates a clean bubble that is quite similar to quarantine. Although, it’s a lot easier to concern oneself with the health of one tiny creature, than with that of all of humanity. Still, the idea of sheltering in place was a groove in my record of experience, and that brought a small amount of comfort. When the outside world melts away—or you slam the door against it—what is inside changes. You notice different parts of your world and yourself without the distraction of life’s regular hustle and bustle. When there is nowhere to go, time and space both warp. I wonder if that’s a sliver of what prison is like? Some reckoning with the clock, knowing there is no place to run to fill those hours. Time can seem endless when the world you knew ends. Or, like those first weeks of parenthood, when the way you fill your time shifts it can also grow and glow with a bigness you never knew existed. This year has had a strange clock of its own, with time becoming longer and shorter all at once. As we approach its end, I feel those warring realities acutely: a push and pull of emotions in the unrest of 2020. 

I am not ready for Christmas, friend. I mean, we have a tree up—one we cut down ourselves at a local tree farm—and it is shining in front of me right now, filled with lights and precious ornaments. There are stockings on the mantle, ready for small and silly presents. I am busy wrapping gifts to a soundtrack of cheery holiday music. Despite the fact that we moved across country this fall, I have forced a household that is very much in disarray and nowhere near how I want it to be, into celebration. There is a plastic sheet taped to the unfinished bathroom walls which serves as a shower curtain, but our mistletoe is hung up. The future kitchen is a shell of a room, filled with muddy boots, random tools, endless recycling and a sad, sad utility sink that is our only dish washing area, but by gum, I put a wreath on the door. There are so many decorations that I hauled out of the temporary storage boxes which sit on our lawn that I may not have time nor space to put them up anywhere. They are scattered, leaning in unfinished corners, and they make me feel a lot of things. Frustrated, sad, sentimental. It is mildly insane that I have decked these halls like it’s any other year, like it’s a house ready for a holiday, like it’s a year to celebrate anything…

I see, as I write this, that I have been muscling my way through my favorite season with a fervor of festiveness because if I don’t cover up the holes that are everywhere in the fabric of our life right now, it may fall apart. Or I may. I’ve been dancing as fast as I can to the beat of The Little Drummer Boy, but I don’t think I can keep up the pace. Damnit. And I don’t even like that song.  Doesn’t it shock you that Christmas is just days away?? How did that happen? Mere days left in the year? I really, really don’t want Christmas to come because I really, really don’t want the year to end, because then it will all truly be gone. All the things we did not get to do. All the missed connections. All the plans like roadkill on the highway of this year. All we lost. I am not ready to say goodbye.

I am a person who marks time by what celebration comes next. On our family calendar, currently hung against 1960’s wallpaper in the farm’s dining room/temporary kitchen, I have drawn a small symbol on each month’s page: a flag for July, a pumpkin for October, a Christmas tree for December, etc. I use these doodles to remind me of the happy time up next. I plan and prepare for each. I decorate. I like occasions because they make life feel more special. When I get blue, I often look ahead at the events to come to give me a fun focus, an escape from the everydayness of everyday. Of course, I know that happiness comes whenever it wants and that holidays can hold pressure which, in turn, may ruin any hope of spontaneous joy. I get that. And yet, I like a party—even a small one with my little family. At least, that’s how I felt before this year…

In 2020, all the parties were small. And some were not at all. I was OK with that, for a while. Like all things Covid, it became manageable, to a degree. But as the end of this insane year closes in, it sweeps away all the possibilities I didn’t even know I was holding on to. That big wall calendar, with so many plans crossed out, never to be rescheduled, will be taken down to make way for the next. Normally, I would be excited about those fresh 365 pages. But right now, there is no way to know when the state of things will really change. Remember, David and I are primarily theatre actors. Our jobs rely upon groups of people gathering in close proximity. It is anyone’s guess when that will happen in a safe and regular way. Maybe not on any of those new days about to go up on the wall. That hurts. Very much. And I recognize that I say this from a completely privileged and extremely lucky position; we are safe, healthy, alive. Many have lost much more, and I try hard to have gratitude for all that we do have. But as I look at my attempts to deck these mid-renovation halls, I see a level of desperation that has 2020 written all over it. I see myself trying to hold onto traditions because I want them to give me reassurance, but it’s not really working. There are little corners of our house that seem almost normal, just like there are moments in the day that feel that way, too. But nothing is normal. Not in our country, our world, nor this house. 

I did have a quite ordinary, very normal moment this last week that suddenly turned into more. That was nice. You should know, I love sending and receiving holiday cards. It’s a tradition my mom always enjoyed and passed on to me. We have already gotten a couple dozen from friends and family across the country. Now, you should also know that I decided to take David’s last name when we got married, though I do maintain my maiden name for work. I was in the middle of my name change process when coronavirus hit. I had already changed my passport, but not my social security card, when all government offices shut down in the NYC area. In addition, we were moving, so I decided to put off completing the changes until the dust settled. When things calmed somewhat in early fall, I tried to get my Minnesota driver’s license, but they could not complete the process because my passport and social did not match. I called the Social Security office in Minnesota and found out they were only taking applications by mail and that the turn-around time was 8 weeks. Uhg. I sent off the required documentation and waited. Finally, the corrected card came, and…they spelled my new name wrong. I called again, and they promised a replacement in two more weeks. Well, the correct card finally came this past week. And even though we’ve been married for two years, it was still a big deal to see my new name printed out by a governing office. I felt a mixture of emotions, kind of like those I've had about everything else these days. I was relieved to cross the task off my list, but also a bit sad to let go of a part of my identity. The card said to me that there was no turning back now. (To be fair, most days I would not want to go back—though there are moments, ha!) At any rate, getting the new card sort of made our family official. Soon after, I looked at the rest of the mail and one piece caught my eye. A Christmas card, addressed in careful script to, “David, Monette and Finley Macdonald.” It wasn’t the first like it, but it was the first I opened after seeing my name on that smaller, pale blue card. And that is when it really hit me. I am part of a new family: my own. 

Let me give this some context. Seven years ago, I was separated from a broken marriage, living alone in a rented room in LA, not knowing if I would ever have another husband, let alone a child. I had never acted on Broadway. I was unsure of almost everything, except for what I did not want. Those were also long days, mostly filled with pain. Staring at the address on that card this past week, sent to a husband and wife who share a magical child and successful careers and are now on a radically different adventure on a farm in Minnesota…my, God!! How has all this happened in that short amount of time?? How is it even possible?? All those slow days, adding up so fast. It bends the mind. Time is deceptive. I looked at that envelope and realized that it did all count—even the bad days, when it felt like nothing happened. Sometimes we can reach astronomical heights without really feeling the climb. The Macdonalds. On their farm. We did that. I made that climb, step by step, day by day, and I am so grateful for the crystalized moment of perspective I had as it hit me how far I’ve come, and how fast.

As I think about the days that led me here, and how so many of them did not feel particularly positive or hopeful, I reconsider this year’s calendar. My need for special days has not been met, no question. I feel sad about so many blank calendar squares that will never be filled. But there are 10 days left in 2020, and today does have an entry: it is Winter Solstice. Defined as “the time or date at which the sun reaches its minimum declination,” the term ‘solstice’ is derived from the latin sol (sun), and stit (stopped). So, it is the place in time where the light stands still. The longest day. It happens on December 21st. Today. What a perfect reflection of all we have been through. There is something so right about letting the dark wash over us today and taking some time to feel its weight, and our wait, and to watch the sun set in the middle of the day, and know we aren’t ready, and we never were, but it happened anyway, and we can miss the days that weren’t, and we can despair for all of it, and then—just at the deepest moment in the night, we can remember that the moon’s tide will turn. The long night must precede the coming light. It’s a cosmic truth. Tomorrow will literally be a brighter day as the sun shifts toward its next solstice. Every day from December 22 through June 20 will provide more and more daylight. And so the world turns. The newborn days give way to the bouncing six-year-old, already stretching away into her own future. The days of quarantine will ebb as the vaccine spreads. Even policies of oppression will eventually end, never fast enough, but inevitably. If it is always darkest before the dawn, my goodness are we in for some sunshine.

In general, the days *are* long, and the years *are* short. But today, on what has felt like the longest year, we have reached the shortest day. A milestone, indeed. It is a day to celebrate, not because there is less of it to suffer through, but because it represents all the days since March 20th so accurately. If a celebration is an acknowledgement of something extraordinary, or a right of passage marking an important change, then today is the day to honor this year. It has been lonely, sad, long and hard, this Staying at Home Time. We were often left in the dark. Many lights went out in our world—marquees and classroom overheads and beautiful, beloved souls. It is right and good to feel those shadows and to mourn. But in the blackest part of this longest day, while we lean deep into the inky night of it all, may we also feel the imperceptible quickening of illumination, both in the sky and in our hearts. That is my holiday wish…

A Soulstice for me and for you.