The summer solstice took place on June 21st.
Solstice. The combination of sol, the Latin ‘sun’ and stit, meaning stopped, stationary - from the verb ‘sistere’; to stand still. It really did feel like the longest day of the year, but it usually does when you’re waiting for night to come.
Sistere, to stand still- which is what we did.
Sistere, to stand still- time stopped somewhere within the shortest night of the year in a three star LAX hotel room.
Sistere, to stand still- what I’ve been doing. Years of waiting, of pushing, of wishing, of wanting, of yearning and waning.
Sistere, I’ve been standing. Still, standing. Wordplay is all fun and games until we get to the root and discover the sister - Consistere, ‘con’, together. To stand together, to hold together. Doesn’t that sound nice? And then of course we have intersistere, ‘inter’, between – meaning to stand between. Which is, considerably less nice sounding.
There is also insistere, resistere, persistere.
Rooted down that gives insist, resist, persist.
Which brings us back to; sist.
To stand, to stop.
Stick with me, now.
You know that quote from Infinite Jest, “Everything I have ever let go of has claw marks on it”? Well, I never left claw marks, but I have been known to leave bruises from how hard I was trying to hold on. I guess I just didn’t get it; sist, to stop. Why would anyone want to? Do I really have to? I would keep doing the things I love forever if I could.
Resistere; to stand against. When you say it that way, it sounds kind of bad. I don’t want to stand against anything. But you know what they say, if you stand for nothing, you’ll fall for anything.
That was written tongue in cheek, not that you can tell.
Resisting sounds bad, I should be allowing, I should be accepting. If you love something, let it go, even if you accidentally bruise it in the process.
Maybe I’ll try, I’ll try starting to stop.
Sist, to stop.
I planned to go through all the rest, you know, a paragraph for each word listed from ‘sistere’. But I can’t seem to move forward. I sit, typing and deleting.
Type then, delete. I find myself standing still. Sistere.
That’s probably how it’s supposed to be, I can’t move from all of this standing still. All this time i’ve been hoping that if I stood and waited for long enough, things would change. But here I am now, looking up the Latin root for sit, opposite of stand, so I can close this one out. I stumbled upon ‘cede’ instead.
Concedere - from the Latin ‘com’, completely, and cedere, to go along, grant, yield. Which gives us concession; to completely yield, to stop resisting, to stop insisting.
To let go. Maybe it’s a symptom of my emotional whiplash, but every time I have tried to concede, I think of having to find a home in someone else and I feel sick again. The thought of boarding a plane makes me want to miss my flight again. Maybe you touched me like you didn’t know me but at least you were touching me again.
Oh Jesus, that one was a doozy to type.
I’ll be honest, I don’t know Latin, I don’t even know if this made any sense. But I do know that on the summer solstice, my mind was able to go blank. Completely calm, there exists a person whose presence creates white noise at night instead of anxiety. I can close my eyes, and it’s okay. Like being wrapped up in wholeness. This is where all my talk of purity comes from. I’m not religious, and i’m not pure, but I know where to find it.
I overthink everything but for the shortest night of the year, I didn’t have to. The irony existing in the fact that it actually was the shortest night; we are always on borrowed time. Of course, I got to the overthinking after, because I had to do something on the flight home. Maybe that’s what this has been about all along - my inability to let go of the wholeness, the purity, the white noise, the quiet.
“Does he feel like home to you?” you said you never understood that quote, but maybe that’s okay, because you did it anyways.
I don’t know what to do now, now that I have exhausted my efforts. Is it time to scroll back up to concedere?
Enhance your reading experience with today’s Blog pairing menu:
Catchy tune: Unknown / Nth by Hozier
Feature film: Asteroid City