WINTER SOLSTICE

Today is December 21. The shortest days of the year are past, and from now on they will gradually grow longer. It will be good to see  the sun early in the morning again, instead of this dismal dark sky.

I’m pretty much a morning person. In summer I love getting up early, seeing the new day dawning before most people are awake. It’s harder in winter, though. When the windows are dead black, a wind is blowing, and the house is cold, staying in bed is too tempting.

When I was going to school or working full time, I sometimes sat down at my desk before the sun rose. I could think clearly then, uninterrupted by whatever dark events and thoughts clouded my mind later. One spring, for a class in animal behavior I even went to a nearby swamp at sunrise every day to make a study of redwings’ courtship behavior. It was a magical time of day, with pale golden light filtering through the trees, and only the birds for company.

A few years later, I found myself crossing San Francisco Bay in a ferry boat before dawn a few times a week. The moon and stars shone in an inky sky above the bay. By the time I reached The City, the sun had risen, illuminating the Transamerica Pyramid and Coit Tower.  I had drunk some coffee and read the morning Chronicle, ready for whatever the day would bring.

Today is all too short, and I am much older. The sun rose at 7:20, and will set at 4:48. Less than ten hours of light! I woke early in the darkness, and turned on some holiday lights while breakfasting. Tonight I will light  a candle on the dinner table. I will delay the night.

FED UP!

I’m tired of all the grousing about Obamacare, all the insistence on gun owners’ rights under the Second Amendment, all the right-wing nastiness in general. What has happened in this country to common sense and compassion?

Those who object to contributing to health care that doesn’t immediately benefit them are simply deluding themselves. Do they not realize that at any moment they may be diagnosed with a serious disease, or be in a traffic accident requiring major surgery? If that happens, they will need a great deal of  money—far more than most people have available—to pay the medical bills. That is what insurance is for.

For many years, I paid for health insurance that included obstetrical benefits, though I was unable to have children. Was that fair? Of course it was; when I have occasionally required medical care for other reasons, the health insurance that others pay into has helped me pay for that care. Similarly, for a long period when my late husband was young and very healthy, he paid into the system. When he later had the heart disease and diabetes that required a sextuple bypass and the amputation of his leg, the bills were partly paid by insurance.

This sharing of responsibility extends to other social obligations, such as everyone’s paying for schools and police protection.  Such sharing is part of the social contract that makes a civilized society possible.

Unfortunately, it sometimes seems doubtful that our society is civilized. A year after the massacre of small children in Newtown, there is little progress in limiting the availability of guns and ammunition. Instead, many states have actually weakened restrictions on them.

Even John Boehner has spoken out about how the far right has hampered normal government operations.  Perhaps if Boehner and other Republicans can rein in the Tea Party-backed representatives, there is a chance that Congress will recover its sanity. I am not very hopeful, but it’s possible.