Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight: The Eleventh Solstice

The winter solstice arrived on a Saturday.

He sat at the south window of the flat with the tea and did not work. The eleventh solstice. He had been not-working on the solstice for eleven years — the day that had begun as the inability to work and had become the practice's annual stillness, the day that the practice gave back to the practice.

He thought about the eleventh year. He thought about what the eleventh year had been.

The school opened in September. The community centre in its fourth section, the fifth section being drawn. The three-generation house in its second winter, the platform recess accumulating its second year of the December light. The library programme in its third year of Thursdays, the five-year-old's two notebooks now into their second year simultaneously, the drawing and the writing. The Farrow house in its third December.

He thought about all the rooms in their eleventh solstice.

He thought about the Farrow platform on the solstice. He thought about Owen and Miriam in the building on the third solstice — the building that knew three Decembers now, the stone seat with three years of the warmth stored, the stone lip receiving the third solstice light. He thought about the seat knowing December better than it had known it in the first year. He thought about the honest material accumulating the knowledge across the years.

He thought about the library corner on the solstice. The Saturday programme not running — the corner in its solstice quiet, the north light steady on the shelf and the angled seat, the quiet room. The five-year-old is not there. The corner attended in her absence.

He thought about the three-generation house. He thought about the threshold room on the solstice — the second solstice, the December sun at its lowest angle entering the room at the level of the floor and crossing to the north wall, the recess at the south edge of the platform receiving the solstice light at the sitting level.

He thought about Frances.

He thought about Frances in the threshold room on the solstice. He thought about Frances going to the south window at standing height and looking at the south field in the December morning — the field in its second winter, the season learned once already by the building, the stone knowing the December angle from the year before.

He thought: Frances will be at the south window.

He thought: the south window will know December from last year.

He thought about the honest material knowing December — the stone accumulating the December light across the years, the warmth built up, the material learning the season the way the attending person learned it through the returning. He thought about the building in its second December as a more honest building than in its first — the material more fully knowing what it was for, the December more fully given to the body that attended to it.

He thought: the honest building improves with the returning.

He thought about the practice. He thought about the practice improving with the returning — the attendance that deepened across the years, the sections getting closer to the truth with each commission, the inside view more honest in the eleventh year than the first. He thought about the honest section as the building's equivalent: the drawing that improved with the returning, the inside view more precise each time the practice returned to the attending.

He thought about Ellie. He thought about Ellie in her eleventh year drawing the community centre section in the stages of approach — the first and the second and the third and the fourth and now the fifth being formed from the allotment Saturday. He thought about Ellie's section improving with the returning. He thought about the eleven-year-old practitioner whose first section had been the beginning and whose fifth section would be more honest than any section the practice had drawn in its first year.

He thought: Ellie has compressed the practice.

He thought about the five-year-old in the library corner who had arrived at the form — the drawing and the writing simultaneously — in eighteen months rather than the practice's ten years. He thought about Ellie arriving at the honest section in five versions rather than the practice's eleven years of commissions. He thought about the honest room teaching the attending body faster than the practice.

He thought: the practice can be compressed by the attending.

He thought: the more concentrated the attending, the faster the truth arrives.

He thought about the school September child at the covered approach. He thought about the four-year-old at the timber panel for thirty seconds — the concentrated attending of the body finding warmth. He thought about the thirty seconds as sufficient. He thought about the library four-year-old going directly on the first Thursday — one morning sufficient to confirm the section.

He thought: the honest room requires only the moment of contact. The attendance need not be long. It needs to be full.

He thought about it all the way in. He thought about the fullness of the contact rather than the duration. He thought about the thirty seconds at the timber panel as fully from all the way in — the complete attending concentrated into the moment.

He thought: this is what the practice has been learning. Not the long preparation — the full contact. The section is adequate when the body can be fully present in it, however briefly.

He thought about the community centre. He thought about the between-time kitchen and the south window for breathing and the weight-bearing room wider than it was tall and the children's corner with the step for the child's feet. He thought about the person who would stand in the community centre weight-bearing room on the first December and look through the south window at the field and take the breath that the village had not had a room for.

He thought: one breath will be sufficient.

He thought: the first breath in the honest room is the confirmation.

He thought about all the first breaths in all the honest rooms — the Farrow house first morning and the library first Thursday and the community centre column and the three-generation first meal and the school timber panel thirty seconds. He thought about all of them as the breath — the body receiving the room in the moment of the full contact.

He thought: the practice has been preparing the breath.

He looked at the south window. The solstice light at its lowest angle, the noon sun on the floor of the flat at its maximum extension. He thought about the December sun line in the fourth section of the community centre — the line crossing the floor of the weight-bearing room. He thought about that line in the building not yet built, the geometry of the December already in the drawing, waiting for the first person to walk through the south door and feel the December light at the level of their seated body.

He thought about the between-time. He thought about the December gathering in the weight-bearing room on the solstice of the community centre's first year — the village in the in-between room on the shortest day, the December light on the floor, the gathering that didn't want to end because the room made the staying possible.

He thought about the between-time kitchen and the cup of tea. He thought about Raymond in the between-time kitchen making tea for the gathering — Raymond in the last year before retirement, the sixty-three-year-old caretaker in the room that had been built partly from what he knew. He thought about Raymond at the south-east window with the field in the peripheral view, the tea in his hands, the between-time happening in the weight-bearing room behind him.

He thought: Raymond will be in the room he always knew.

He thought: the room will know Raymond.

He thought about the step in the corner — the step made from scrap timber forty years ago for the girl in her forties, the step that had been in the practice before the practice existed. He thought about the step in the community centre corner — the built-in step at the base of the bench, the step for the child's feet on the adult's seat. He thought about the commission that had arrived at the step from the girl who couldn't reach the stage, the chain from the scrap timber to the section to the built bench.

He thought: the step for the girl in her forties is in the community centre corner.

He thought: she is in the building without knowing it.

He thought: the chain runs through all of them. The girl and Raymond and Margaret and Ellie and Frances and Ada and Tom and Reuben and the four-year-old and the five-year-old and the library corner and the school timber panel and all the between-times not yet had in the room not yet built.

He thought: the chain holds everyone who has attended.

He thought: the chain will hold everyone who will attend.

He looked at the south window. The solstice light. The eleventh year. The practice is in December.

He thought about the twelfth year. He thought about the community centre in build and the school in its first full year and the three-generation house in its third winter and the library programme continuing and the Farrow house receiving its fourth December. He thought about the commissions not yet arrived — the sites not yet walked, the letters not yet written, the people not yet met who would give the practice the words it had not yet found.

He thought: the twelfth year will bring its attendance.

He thought: the attending is not finished.

He thought about Ellie's community centre in its fifth section, being drawn now, the Saturday allotment in the drawing. He thought about the community centre submitting its section to the planning authority and the approval coming and the build beginning and the first December in the weight-bearing room and the between-time happening for the first time in its own room.

He thought: I will be in the between-time kitchen on the first day.

He thought: not to inspect. To be there.

He thought: to see the room receive the people who have always needed it.

He was glad.

He was, in the full weight of the eleventh solstice and all the rooms in their shortest day and Raymond making tea at the south-east window in the building not yet built and the step for the girl in her forties in the corner not yet formed and the between-time not yet in its room and the first breath not yet taken and the twelfth year coming and the attending not yet finished and the practice still in its beginning and the chain still running and all the sections still to be drawn from all the way in, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Eight