Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight: The Tenth Solstice

The winter solstice fell on a Sunday.

He had not checked the day of the week beforehand — he had not needed to. The solstice arrived when it arrived. He had been not-working on the solstice for nine years and now ten, the day that did not require the confirmation of the calendar to be itself.

He made tea in the morning and sat at the south window of the flat.

The tenth solstice. He thought about the ten years. He thought about the practice in its tenth year — the school in build, the community centre in its first section, the three-generation house in its first winter, the library in its third year of Thursdays. He thought about the commissions in their stages, the practice in its fullness, the tenth year as the year of the accumulated attendance.

He thought about what the tenth solstice was different from the first.

He thought about the first solstice — the year of the practice's beginning, the December of the first honest room, the long sitting at the south window with the notebooks barely started and the vocabulary not yet found. He thought about sitting at this window on the first solstice with the attending as conviction rather than evidence, the practice chosen before the practice had produced its rooms.

He thought: the first solstice was the practicing of the conviction.

He thought: the tenth solstice is the evidence of the practice.

He thought about all the rooms built across the ten years — the Farrow house and the library and the community centre and the three-generation house and the school not yet complete but in build. He thought about the honest rooms in their Decembers, each of them on this shortest day in their particular December quality. He thought about the platform recess at a hundred centimetres with the December sun at the level of the sitting body. He thought about the library corner with the north light constant, the corner attending in the empty Saturday building. He thought about the school hall that did not yet exist — the two-height tables and the south windows extended to forty centimetres and the timber north wall, the school in its first December still a year away.

He thought about the rooms not yet built. He thought about the community centre with the level entry and the lower ceiling in the corner and the window between the children's corner and the in-between room. He thought about the allotment in December — the bare earth, the ground in preparation. He thought about the section not yet complete, the second section not yet drawn, the community centre in the earliest stage of the attending.

He thought about the school's September child not yet received. He thought about the detailed drawings and the tender and the contractor to be appointed. He thought about the September child who did not yet know the school was being rebuilt for them.

He thought about all the people in all the rooms not yet built — the attending bodies not yet inhabiting the sections, the weight bearing not yet arrived at the kitchen table, the first meals not yet eaten.

He thought: the practice is still in December.

He thought about the ten years of the practice's December — the preparation that had been the practice, the making ready, the sections drawn for mornings not yet arrived. He thought about ten years of believing in the arrival of the person before the person came. He thought about the rooms built and the rooms building and the rooms not yet begun, all of them in their December simultaneously, all of them the preparation not yet given its morning.

He thought: December is the practice's permanent condition. Not a season but a state. The state of the room that believes in the arrival before the arrival comes.

He thought about Frances at the south edge on the first December she had known the land. He thought about Frances on the first December in the building — this first December, this solstice, Frances looking through the south window at the south field in the December light. He thought about the building learning its first solstice, the stone and the glass and the steel receiving the shortest day for the first time, the material accumulating the first layer of the knowledge it would build across the years.

He thought: the building is in its first December.

He thought: the building has arrived at the condition the practice has always been in.

He thought about Ellie's community centre on the solstice. He thought about the old allotment on the shortest day — the bare earth, the south hedge with the December light through the winter gaps, the site in its most itself. He thought about the section not yet drawn from this allotment in this light, the inside view still forming in the exchange of drawings between the eleven-year-old and the architect.

He thought about sitting on the allotment on the solstice. He thought about walking across the bare December ground to the south hedge and standing in the low light and attending to the site on the day when the site was most fully in its December.

He thought: I should have gone to the allotment today.

He thought: the allotment is the site of the next attending.

He thought about the section that would come from the allotment on the solstice — the inside view of the December that the community centre was being built for. He thought about the community centre's December as its reason — the in-between room in winter, the gathering that happened not in the summer programme but in the December gathering, the village coming together in the short day.

He thought about Margaret's eleven years. He thought about what the village had been missing for eleven years in December — the room that was not the pub and not the church and not the school, the in-between room where the gathering happened without a programme, the room that received the person who was not sure they were arriving.

He thought: the community centre is most itself in December. The in-between room is the December room.

He wrote in the commission notebook: The tenth solstice. The community centre's December. The in-between room in the short day — the gathering that is not the pub and not the church. The village coming together in the room that does not require a reason for the coming. The December room.

He wrote: I should have gone to the allotment. The site on the solstice is the section's beginning.

He thought about the eleventh year. He thought about the community centre and the school and the three-generation house in its second winter and the library in its fourth year of Thursdays. He thought about the commissions not yet arrived — the letter not yet written, the site not yet walked, the attending not yet begun.

He thought about the practice in the eleventh year.

He thought: the eleventh year will have its commissions. They are already forming in the world — the sites and the people and the reasons not yet named. They are in their own December, the preparation not yet given its section.

He thought about the people he had not yet met who would give the practice the words it had not yet found. He thought about the words not yet given — the words that would arrive from the attending the way loudest had arrived from Ada and from all the way in had arrived from the five-year-old and the un-decided had arrived from Ellie and silver had arrived from Tom. He thought about the vocabulary still growing, still receiving the words from the bodies that knew the rooms.

He thought: the practice is in its beginning.

He thought: it has always been in its beginning.

He looked at the south window. The solstice light at its lowest angle, the noon sun at its furthest horizontal reach, the light on the floor of the flat at its maximum extension. He thought about this light in the community centre's gathering room in the December of the first year — the south window at forty centimetres and the December sun entering the room at the level of the sitting body and moving across the floor of the weight-bearing room to the north wall.

He thought about the weight-bearing room holding the December sun on its floor. He thought about the people in the weight-bearing room on the solstice of the community centre's first year — the village gathering in the in-between room on the shortest day, the December sun on the floor, the room that had not existed for eleven years finally holding the gathering it had been built for.

He thought: the section must draw this morning.

He thought: the section from the south edge must begin with this.

He opened the commission notebook. He wrote: begin the next section with the solstice sun in the weight-bearing room. Draw the December line from the south window at forty centimetres across the floor to the north wall. The room is in December. The in-between room on the shortest day. The gathering that is not the pub and not the church and not the school.

He wrote: the section believes in the arrival of the morning before the morning comes. Draw this morning.

He put the pen down.

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

He was glad.

He was, in the full weight of the tenth solstice and the ten years of the practice and the rooms in their Decembers and the community centre not yet built and the section beginning with the shortest day and the eleventh year ahead and the vocabulary still growing and the attending still deepening and the mornings not yet arrived still in the sections being drawn toward them, glad.

He was glad.

End of Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Eight