Well, my friends, here we are!
Sending out fist bumps, high fives, daps, pounds and other celebratory exchanges to each of you.
We are at the gate, and we’re poised to step through.
Before we do, though, I’d like to share a few facts on what tomorrow means. (Let’s call it an 11th-hour solstice lesson if that’s cool with all of you.)
FACT: By definition, the winter solstice (AKA the hibernal solstice) marks the moment when one of the Earth’s poles is tilted away from the sun at its maximum distance. (Translated, the shortest daylight day of the year will soon be in the rearview!)
That’s right, as we move closer and closer to what has been called the “birth of the sun,” come 10:59am tomorrow morning (Eastern Standard Time, EST), we will have officially reached the solstice.
For all you aspiring etymologists out there, if we break down the word itself, from the Latin scientific term “solstitium,” loosely translated, it means “sun standing still.”
Pretty cool, huh?
What’s even cooler, though, is that we got here together.
And in the spirit of that, let’s take a quick look back at some of the highlights of where we’ve been on this journey:
DAY 29 – A visit to the inspiration for U2’s The Joshua Tree
Day 25 – A remote thicket in rural Virginia and a makeshift music venue
Day 18 – Eighteen reasons for kindness
Day 15 – Our travel-oriented bucket list
Day 12 – Fighting through the “tween labyrinth” back in the day
Day 10 – Looking for hidden gems, dialing up a list of “sleeper” movies and books
Day 6 – Tribute to a baseball-playing music maven who touched us all
Day 3 – Revisiting a Jersey Shore town on a cool May evening
And if I haven’t said/written it enough, none of this stuff means a thing without all of you. And to that end, I would like to thank each and every one of you for reading and commenting and encouraging.
You are my inspiration for trying to weave this panoply together, and I hope, moving forward, that you will visit with me whenever you’re so inclined.
Lastly, on a very personal note, I know these continue to be some difficult times for all of us; hey, they just are.
During this past year alone, I said goodbye to three very close friends, all of whom were younger than I. For me, as a close buddy of mine once wrote, “As I play the back nine of life, I am grateful for every day that I have.”
And I am grateful for all of you.
With that in mind, please join me tomorrow for our final wrap-up.
JFish
“Give me a number. Please, celebrate me home. Play me one more song.” – Kenny Loggins