Winter Darkness & Winter Light
"Winter Solstice" by Nina MacLaughlin, plus my best books of the year and last-minute presents <3<3
Happy winter, dear reader! It’s finally here, and the shortest day is past. Now each day, imperceptibly, will be seconds, moments, minutes, longer than the last. This is a piece of hope to hold on to—the glimmer of light—as we enter the three coldest, most unforgiving months of the year.
Last night my cousin Charley told me that the best way to really see gold or bronze is in the dark. Imagine you’re in an ancient Egyptian tomb, and you’re walking through dimly lit, low ceilinged halls. Tunnels, really. Your way is lit by a torch that makes that torch sound. You know the sound. Suddenly the space opens up, and in front of you is an enormous, polished bronze door. Actually, why not give into excess? This is my imagination, our imagination. The door is solid gold. And the light catches it, and there in the darkness, you are struck: so that is the color gold. That is what it looks like.
So it is with winter.
This week I read a little book—an essay published as a book—by Nina MacLaughlin. It’s called Winter Solstice, and my sweet mom gave it to me because she knows me and loves me. It’s only 79 pages long, and it is packed full of goodness. Lyrically written, each sentence a poem of its own, it zeros in on—or asks its reader to zero in on the darkness. Look into the darkness, sink into it.
The image of a well in the dark of a night without stars. The image of a bucket lowered in, and in, and in. How deep can it sink? Into the primeval darkness, into the chaos. And then—when you pull it back, hand by hand, what will you dredge up? Whatever it is, “Winter holds it all in cupped hands. And with it, the understanding, frank and cold, that you and the ones you love, all, at some point end. The dark makes us see it. And this, knowing, however deep it lives, at whatever barely detectable frequency it hums, is what lights the holy spark in us.”
MacLaughlin draws on Greek and Roman mythology—ancient festivals and rituals. Persephone’s pomegranate seeds, and Demeter’s sorrow. Capricorn, the earthy, stomping sea goat, ruled by Saturn—a god celebrated with the festival Saturnalia each year right around the winter solstice. And then Newgrange in Ireland—a mound of earth older than all of that, older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids at Giza. Underneath, through a tunnel is a carved chamber with a porthole where the light pours through at sunrise on the solstice—perfect alignment. These pagan recognitions of the menace and the hope that dance together in this season prove that we haven’t changed so much.
My favorite part comes at the end, when MacLaughlin talks about lighting battery operated candles in the window of her childhood home—timing it just so as cars were driving down the street. She would imagine and hope that those passing by would catch the lighting and think, “that’s for me, a miracle for me.” And had they caught it, out of the corner of their eye, and had they thought that, they would have been right. A miracle.
And now! As a gift guide of sorts, I give you Eve’s Top Seven Books of 2023. In the order that I read them, so don’t even THINK that these are ranked—picking only seven was hard enough as is. I read so many good books this year (find them ALL here).
Teenager by Bud Smith
Good for people who like morally ambiguous but lovable characters, manic energy, and sticking it to the man.
One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Good for people who like multi-generational family sagas, superstitious people, and people who won’t mind the fact that all of the characters have the same name.
Hold Still by Sally Mann
Good for people who love art, readers of memoirs and your friends and family from the American South. Also people who are interested in death and won’t be repulsed by dead bodies.
An Apprenticeship or The Book of Pleasures by Clarice Lispector
Good for mostly women, but could be good for men too—anyone who’s in love and also anyone who might be afraid of love. Good for the anxious mind.
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig
Good for any mind and anyone who wants to explore their mind. Must be willing to be confused and interested in establishing a life philosophy.
Foster Dade Explores the Cosmos by Nash Jenkins
Good for anyone who went to boarding school, people who like drama through the grapevine, campus novels, or remembering what it’s like to be a teenager.
To The Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
Good for people who like art or are writers. Also good for mothers and anyone who feels misunderstood.
If the above doesn’t satisfy your last minute gift giving (and getting) needs, here are some further suggestions from yours truly:
Hot tip! If you are in a position where someone is asking you what you want for Christmas, ask them to give you a book that changed their life, or that they loved, or that they think should be required reading for everyone (however you want to phrase it). Three of the seven books on the hotly anticipated above Eve’s Top Seven Books of 2023 were given to me by beloved friends and family members in response to that very request.
And, as a bonus! Much of the poetry I read and wrote about this year came from my Everyman’s Library seasonal anthology. Poetry anthologies in general make for wonderful gifts, and Everyman’s Library does such a good job. The books are small, so they make the perfect stocking stuffers! My favorites are the themed anthologies like the stories here and poems here. I know it’s probably too late to order in time for Christmas, but I think they sell some of them at Barnes & Noble—like this one, which is in stock at the Charlottesville Barnes & Noble for any family of mine who is still looking for a present for me.
One more before I go! Visit to your local small bookstore and ask the bookseller for suggestions. If you know even just one thing about the person you’re buying for—like that they love astrology or gardening or dogs or being in love. There’s a book for that. I spent a clean accidental $106.82 at mine yesterday (New Dominion Bookshop).
Oh shoot, one more! Don’t forget to buy a Christmas present for yourself—I always do, and it’s almost always a book!
Okay—I’m taking next week off, so goodbye now. Until next year, kisses, love you!
yey for 100 years of solitude!
I’ve just started Septology (Jon Fosse, Nobel Prize winner) and it’s working EXACTLY these themes. It’s actually eerie - you must check out!