This is one of those posts where nothing happens. But tomorrow is the day when we technically celebrate the coming of spring (Imbolc named for the sheep heavy with lambs, I’m told), also a day when pre-Christians (and current day neopagans, Wiccans, and others) celebrated Brigid, who is supposed to bring the light and run winter off in addition to her other gifts. Christianized as Saint Brigid and Candlemas the connection with light and flames remained, along with the coming of light in the longer days. In some stories, if the weather is nice on Imbolc that means the winter spirit Cailleach is out gathering wood so she can make winter longer, clearly a precursor to Groundhog Day! Half way between winter solstice and the spring equinox still feels like winter to me, but I like the idea of celebrating the coming light in whomsoever’s tradition one does that and of setting intentions and grounding hope for the coming year. We can use all the hope we can muster right now.
I thought of all this as I stepped outside tonight to close the living room shutters against the night. My nephew, Boo, and I hung (well, slung really) these balls of lights from the Linden trees before Christmas, and their chords seem firmly settled into the lush moss of the trees. They come on at dusk, and as I stepped outside in that perfect blue moment between dusk and night there was enough light to see the whiteness of the bed of snowdrops in front of the house, but also enough darkness for there to be a line of glowing solar lights along the drive, the streetlight on the corner, and our light balls. And I have to say it did feel as if Spring might come in spite of the rain and gloomy days we are having.
The other reason light is on my mind is because I finally got my long-dreamed of standing lamps for the living room. The house came with some fascinating chandeliers, which we needed to buy from the previous owner or face a dark arrival with no light fixtures. In my early Facebook updates I said the chandeliers in the living room would be the first to go, but they are still here. Although everyone taller than me risks head injury as they walk across the room, we have become quite fond of them. We can’t agree on what kind of overhead lights would work with the room the way they do, so they stay. Walter even put them onto dimmer switches so they are not so bright, but dimmers flicker and they are too bright.
Yesterday, in need of adventure, we went back to Brocante Au Chien Vert on the road to Albi, where we got two beautiful armoire (see July 22, 2023). It is an amazing place and I recommend the video of the inside for your entertainment and a sense of how much fun we had — it also gives you a sense of his taste in music, which is broad and totally eclectic. My “shopping list” included lamps, picture frames, and “cool stuff,” which ended up being some lovely lace that I will write about soon (a delayed Christmas present, much more fun than more jewelry). I’ve been kind of obsessed with lace for the last year or so. But I digress.
The owner says he is selling up and moving on (no time-frame given), so he was willing to part with the two floor lamps that he had not initially planned to sell. And I love them. I had been wishing for pseudo-Tiffany lamps, but these are so much better. Aside from being elegant and a little bit funky (one allows you to raise and lower the light by more than a foot), they give the gentler, cosy light that I have wished for in this room without being the stars of that light as Tiffany would. We will still use the overheads in the day, and we are keeping those chandeliers, but when the room is lit by a roaring fire in the stove and these two lamps, I think it is perfect.
Walter also bought two lanterns that he might put on the gate posts (as you can see, there are seven left it he gets more ambitious…). They are the same basic design as the street lights, but I think maybe a little big. We will see. Anyway, clearly light was on both of our minds. It features in a lot of these posts, so I guess that isn’t a surprise. Aside from the courtyard, the other realtor image that sold me on the house before I saw it was of the living room with all of the shutters open on a sunny day. A lot of the houses here tend to be on the dark side, but this flood of light reinforced the inside-outside fluidity of the house for me. We have used the space very differently than in this picture, with a baby grand piano where the table is and a lot more chairs and couches, but once the spring hits and we open all those shutters the same flood light will tell us winter is definitely over.
