Time, lights, and wintery nights

There has been a lot going on the past few weeks and I have had a very odd sensation of going both fast and slow, in different directions, at the same time. The phrase "doesn't know if she's coming or going" would be apropos lately. I've been on the road more than usual, driving 70 mph on freeways trying to get to the next place I need to be, and although I'm going fast, I have a distinct feeling of time slowing down. 

It may be that I know in my head all the things I'm NOT doing, like writing, editing, some special projects that I want to finish up, and it may also be winter, and the nights falling early. I'm not sure what it is about darkness that slows time down for me, but it does.

This year we put a smaller tree in the living room and put the big Christmas tree on the front porch. When I drive down our lane to November Hill, I catch a glimpse of light as I come down the hill. Every time I see it I pause to ask myself if that is our light or someone else's - the road curves further along and I'm never sure if I'm seeing our tree or the neighbor's lights. But that initial glimpse, the question, then the knowing, is like a little bit of balm on dry skin, the first sign of Home.

When I get to our driveway I see the tree clearly, all lit up with tiny white lights, the warm golden ones, not the blue-ish LED lights I'm seeing everywhere these days. Like little candles, ours are, and although on one hand I feel so glad to be home a part of me wants to hit the gas and get to the garage as quickly as possible, what I actually do is slow even more, bringing the truck to a near stop as I enter the driveway, enjoying the lights, letting the good feeling of being home wash over me.

Often when I glide slowly along the driveway I'll see one of our wild extended family members. Last night it was brown bunny. Some nights I see the November Hill deer. Raccoons, opossums, owls, foxes have been spotted in the past. I love the fleeting glimpse of whichever animal I see. Our little world is home to more than we know. After that I take one last look at the tree and head into the garage, and I can hear Bear Corgi upstairs and usually see at least one cat waiting as I come up the stairs and into the house. 

Donkeys braying, sometimes the musical whinny of a Big Handsome Bay. All of this is what that fleeting glimpse of light at the top of the hill means when I drive down our lane. 

Home is the place I want to be when I'm rushing madly around, and when I get here, it's where the rushing time and the slowing time finally meet in the middle and come to a very beautiful stopping point. Or at least that's what it feels like to me.