The Second Shortest Day

July 2025: Reading, Writing & Rambling

July was odd. After celebrating my birthday at the end of June, I wrote a very personal essay and promptly lost three subscribers. Feeling vulnerable, I paywalled (rather than unpublish) my emotional essay and immersed myself in other things.

Insects, date unknown, Jan van Kessel the Elder, The Fitzwilliam Museum

I continued listening to A.S. Byatt’s Possession on Libby. I’ve completed about half of it. A few weeks ago, I was reading Stevie Davies’ Heretic (it was my current take-along to the hospital), and she mentions Possession! This happens to me a lot…the authors or subjects or themes in which I’m interested interweave, surprising me. Similarly, I was listening to Possession last week and I got to the part of the book during which the two main characters visit The Boggle Hole. I thought, Wait, this sounds familiar…ah, yes, it’s because I had recently read about Simon Haisell’s (

Footnotes and Tangents

) visit to the very place. Everything is interconnected.

Yesterday I borrowed The Mirror & The Light on Libby, I’m going to listen to the Ben Miles reading of Hilary Mantel’s novel; I’m sort of orbiting the 2025 Wolf Crawlers. I participated in last year’s slow read, and thoroughly enjoyed Wolf Crawl and Bring Up the Bodies. While reading those books, I was simultaneously perusing Ronald Hutton’s delightfully intriguing, The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. At times, material melded together and the rituals in Hutton mirrored scenes in Mantel.

Then…around All Hallows, my husband underwent a radical nephrectomy and he was diagnosed with kidney cancer; it was all sudden and entirely unexpected. I just could not end my year (historical spoiler alert!) with any more sadness. I laid Mantel aside.

There is never any end to sorrow though, is there? Three weeks ago today, we received a telephone call and learned a dear friend had suddenly passed away. He had visited us only two weeks prior; he was picking up materials, graciously taking over a workshop my husband teaches each summer at the Mount Gretna School of Art. Now, he is gone. He died on the same day as my (step)dad; whom I still grieve, though he succumbed to cancer four full years ago.

A few days ago I spent some time talking with my eighty-six-year-old cousin. She is my first cousin two-times removed. Despite that designation, we have always been incredibly close to one another. She called to ask if I had gotten her text—because despite her age, she (usually) wields an iPhone pretty effectively. I’d not received the text, so I am glad she reached out. I am one of our family’s enthusiastic genealogists (her eldest son is the other). She was wondering if I could forward some information to him. Of course, said I; and today, I will do that very thing. My beloved first cousin two times removed is currently in hospice care, diagnosed with bladder cancer.

I am heartbroken to think of a world without her…

And so why have I written this essay today? Why have I shared all of these personal details (and removed the paywall from my birthday essay?). To remind myself there will always be something to celebrate and there will always be sorrow. If genealogy research hasn’t already taught me that, nothing will. Today I will collect the family histories of my grandmothers’ siblings. I will listen to Ben Miles read Mantel. I will write about Wuthering Heights and work for an hour or so on my own novel draft.

I’ll make the time to watch damselflies deposit eggs on the undersides of the water hyacinths in our garden pond…on this, the second shortest day in history.

Details for my upcoming read-along of Wuthering Heights will be published next week. I had planned not to require participants to update their subscriber settings, but after giving it some thought, I’d prefer to keep the chapter summaries under the Read With Me banner. Keep this in mind if you tend to rely on the Substack app (the app will not provide you access to any read-along posts, as Sections are hidden from navigation).

Thank you for reading Symbolism & Structure and choosing to spend your precious time with me. I appreciate your attention and your thoughtful interaction. ♡