Blast off! Apollo 8 – 3 guys in a tin can loving a ride to the moon and back. Photo courtesy of NASA.

Fifty years ago, my classmates in the class of ’69, on the shortest day of the calendar year (which provided us with the longest night to make out beneath the Christmas lights), witnessed the launching of Apollo 8. For the first time ever, at the dawn of the Age of Aquarius (and really great music) the man on the moon wasn’t a space oddity, he was an Earthling! That’s how we Boomers celebrated 69’s hibernal solstice! Rather than hibernate until winter passed- we fired up a rocket ship and ventured off-planet to explore the moon. It was a three-day cruise to circle the moon, get a look at its dark side before Pink Floyd did, and snap a selfie of planet Earth. It was a short day that will last long in the history of great adventures.

View from Apollo 8 of our tiny blue marble. Photo courtesy of NASA.

I’ve spent the past week watching the sun slink into the Gulf of Mexico. The sun never seemed to get very high during the day. It slipped into the sea a bit earlier every afternoon bringing forth evening well before we were ready to call it a day. There wasn’t enough solar energy to warm the beach or seduce me to peel off a sweatshirt and bare my pale skin to its waning rays. Frankly, the sun seemed to be a bit depressed.

Winter on Indian Rocks Beach.

Even at noon, our star sat so low in the southern sky that the sea appeared to forsake its blue hue for the colorless fabric of old jeans destined for next week’s charity pick-up.

At winter solstice our northern hemisphere tilts as far from the sun as it can without knocking the whole planet upside the head. This is when the rapport between our planet and the sun chills. Northerners hunker down for long winter nights. We ride the north face of our planet sans ample sunshine and like the astronauts, have more time to pay attention to the moon.

My seasons’ tidings on this winter solstice are simple. It’s been a dazzling year, thank you. So my brilliant, Sun, go ahead and rest a bit.

Day is done. IRB. December.

You’ve got a long climb ahead before it’s  time to play “Even Stevens” with Night at the equinox and then dazzle us on the summer solstice. While you’re building up steam for hot summer days, I’ll be savoring long night times, tucking in, reading by the hearth, and snuggling beneath a down comforter. Winter is here but so far it’s never lasted forever. I’m not hibernating from Solstice to Equinox. In fact, like the Apollo guys and Musk’s Rocket Man, I’ll steadily be gaining energy, rising earlier, and settling down later. While my sunshine will dawdle through winter, I’ll be stocking up on SPF 50 while planning for my 50th high school reunion and next season’s bright adventures, across, at, and on the sea. Shine on!

Givin’ it a rest on IRB.