Back To Work

Planet Earth had its perihelion, its closest approach to the Sun, today and the winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, has passed. The Earth is moving further from the Sun as the days are growing longer - see if you can notice.

But what all this means to me is that it's time to go back to work - my end-of-the-year, accrued-vacation-time burnoff ends today. Eight o'clock tomorrow, I will be back in the office (or at least heading in that direction) for the first time since December 22.

Today was the painful day of resetting my internal body clock. I got up early (by holiday standards) yesterday and today for the January zazenkai, and while the tiredness didn't hit me yesterday, it did catch up to me this afternoon. I need to get a good night's sleep, cause I don't want to feel tomorrow like I did today when I'm back at work.

No regrets (je ne regrette rien) about the lack of travel, leisure activities or other traditional holiday pursuits, although I did manage to finish "The Corrections," spend some quality time at the Zen Center, got the teeth cleaned, and even did some prep work for my upcoming dharma talks. I also caught up on a few household chores: my cleaning girl came by today (I think she wanted to offset some holiday expenses before the Spring semester starts) and the house hardly looks like someone's been encamped here for the past two weeks.

But for now, it's back to work.