Bit on the upswing after the solemnity. Mulling the possibility that it was the stage dimming before the Grail descended -- after all, the background context of this holiday is winter night. John of the Cross -- the armies... descended.
--
One does make acquaintance with the shadows of life during those times, in addition to the difficulties of the present, and I'm coming to realize that there were a few things askew with the early life. Every unhappy family has a right to be unhappy in its own way, but when two or three secrets, both the official kind and the family-bible type, cause a house that unhappy, I do have to fault the folks who insisted that the secrets be kept. The cause of much unhappiness, and a few broken things, and now, when the secrets wouldn't matter too much -- neither help nor hurt -- it seems clear that the cost of keeping them and riding out the storm was unconscionably high. Particularly for the ones clueless at the time.
Shadows of the past. Only visible in the light of the present. Onward.