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Equal Knocks for All!

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Today is the day of the Autumnal Equinox, one of two points in Earth’s year-long trip around the sun when the planet’s and the star’s middles line up and we have equal daytime and nighttime hours.

The official moment is 10:09 central time this evening.

I like the equinox because it is one of the few calendar events that can be said to provide roughly the same experience everywhere on the planet.

What happens in the weeks before and after the equinox is vastly different, depending where you are. In the Southern Hemisphere, this day is a signal that summer is coming. In fact, some say we should call the two equinoxes “March” and “September” or “Northward” and “Southward”, because the terms we’ve been using are North Hemisphere-centric.

That’s undeniably true, but I do like the standard names because they make our Equinoxes seem like twins – related, but very different. One is hopeful, the other, dark.
So I’ve written them a little sing-song poem.

A pox, Autumnal Equinox!
A pox on your arrival.
To see the sun sink, southward bound
Bodes ill for our survival.

We’ll watch our day shrink to a blink
Its golden globe, a kernel.
Then wait through months of dark to greet
Your warmer brother Vernal.

Are you like or unlike your siblings?

95 thoughts on “Equal Knocks for All!”

  2. i am not like my siblings and they are happy about that.
    we grew up when two years apart was a life time and drifted furteher as time went on we are there for each other but don’t ask us to sit i a room for 4 hours with each other. it is not a pretty sight. morons. idiots they are the same as they always were and sady so am i.

    of to a full day but i do have tickets to the 12:00 game with hte central divisopn champion minnesota twins.
    got it done last night we are off to the playoffs.
    welcome back clyde. glad it went will in cali.
    look forward to your daily presence, not that you were gone much while you were gone.
    onward baboons

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      1. go buy them on the street before the game or go to stubhub or craigslist. you can get them they are just a little more expensive unless you are persistent

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      1. clyde i hope efrafa blows over pretty soon. 3 days you know. immense happiness something to strive for but sainthood can only be imitaded so long.
        it was great

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      1. they didn’t,
        it was the b team but they still won. the twins do it with smoke and attitude. it is fun to see the wanna be starters get their chance for glory and to prove themselves of their big league uniforms. gardy works magic.

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  3. Rise and Shine Baboons:

    The mere thought of the Equinox being today is enough to send me into a Seasonal Depression. The cold I can bear, the light –really the lack of light– is much harder. I read the topic today, got up and went for my walk, pouting as I watched the sunrise; then came back to face the season. I once knew a guy named Vernal of all things.

    Siblings! I have pretty nice siblings, although we are each very different in our ways. We do not look alike and never did. As kids we formed our own little unit and learned to cope with our mother in Labor Union fashion, which was quite effective. If one person wanted something, we stood together to advocate! We still enjoy each other’s company and gather often. My sister was a teacher and is now a writer. My brother a teacher getting to retire then teach at the college level. I feel lucky to have these siblings and I am glad we get along.

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    1. I think I’m just the opposite on the cold/dark aspects of winter. I’m okay with the short days, and I get into cooking and baking and doing jigsaw puzzles. But then when we get the bitter cold snap, I stop functioning normally, can’t get warm, and just want to hibernate till it’s over.

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    2. You surely know, Jacque, how fortunate you are to have mutual respect and affection with all sibs. I wonder if there are studies to show whether that gives a person a big boost in life. I’d guess it does. Funny story about sib solidarity when negotiating with your mother.

      You should have married Vernal. People would never forget someone with the name of Jacque Of All Things.

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  4. Four siblings. I’m most like one sister… we get along the best… course my brother and I sound sort of alike; Dad confuses us for the other if we call on the phone… One sister that is the complete opposite of the rest of the family; we call her the Black Sheep. And the oldest sister; she’s just different all the way around. I think it’s that ‘oldest being responsible’ thing… I’m the youngest; I got away with anything and everything…

    “Busy” day here at the college… it’s ‘Student Success Day’ and the theme is ‘It’s a Jungle Out There’ so I have four speakers in the theater today to deal with…
    … I may have time to read the blog from the lightboard computer but not sure if I can respond … and if it makes the lights go wacky I really should avoid that too….

    Later, y’all!

    Ben

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  5. Heighdy ho, Baboons! Daylight in the swamp!

    I don’t have siblings (plural), just one sibble. My sister is so unlike me that she spent years snooping around the house, trying to find documents to prove her conviction that she was adopted.

    I’m trying to find ways to express our differences that won’t be Too Much Information. My sister has virtually no impulse control. She does exactly what she wants to do, and it isn’t difficult for her to find rationalize her conduct afterward. In this, as in so many things, I am her opposite.

    For years we had conflicts, and I have spent much of my life minimizing contact with her. Then I learned that she has a personality disorder that causes her to do the things she does. I once blamed her for the things she did, but now feel that is inappropriate. We have made great progress toward a genuine friendship in recent years.

    And now she has a particularly nasty cancer. Difficulties we had before don’t seem as important now.

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    1. There’s a burden to carry, good man. Hold up well. Keep us informed.
      As I have mentioned on here more than once, my brother is an untreated paranoid. Divorced himself from my sister and I and then travels the country telling all of our relatives how terrible we are. I think because he goes to such lengths and repeats things over and over and enhances the story each time, that they are starting to catch on. It hurts my sister because she has constant contact with our relatives. (We knew better than to invite my brother to the wedding last weekened after his performance at our mother’s funeral two years ago.) I just never got to know them so it matters little to me. Many of them do not approve of me–ultra-copnservative westerners–who are upset that I was a licensed lay pastor, and not ordained, and that my daughter, a woman, is a Lutheran pastor. All that on top of being a public school teacher. How did my relatively liberal mother come from the same family?

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      1. Clyde: What you say about family dynamics is interesting. I like to ponder the capricious nature of that. You might remember from my book that my father’s father had a low opinion of women. In a typical home that might have sent my dad down the same road. But he adored his mother and not his cold fish father, so he venerated women all his life. I’ve wondered if my feminism came from him or if I just got there by the same route that led me to pinko politics. Cause and effect get so mixed up in such things.

        And lucky you to have a liberal mother!

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    2. A cancer diagnosis is a difficult thing for even a well-balanced person to handle. The sleeplessness, anxiety and depression that accompany the treatment can really amplify any preexisting disorder. I wish her the best.

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      1. That’s a sweet comment Linda, and it is going to draw a surprising reply. My sister’s personality disorder had been her best friend as she has struggled with her treatments (btw it isn’t the cancer but the treatments that have almost killed her).

        She has the Histrionic Personality Disorder, which causes her to want to be the center of attention. As someone possibly dying of cancer, she has had full rights to talk about herself all the time. She created a blog site and chatted daily about what she was going through. She loved all the attention this brought her. She has been thrilled to be the star in this drama, although of course we all wish it had not happened. And I dread what might lie ahead.

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      2. Some disorders just love themselves, protect themselves, or, as less generous or experienced people often say, people love the disorders. I had pretty bad depression in my 40’s. Everyone with fm has or had despression. It is a very powerful urge to resist treatment. Depression made my world very simple, it explained everything. It made the whole world dull and dark but that’s how it made sense of the world. I knew what was always going to happen–something bad.
        My wife was a small town librarian; the library had many patients as regulars and it had many care-givers as regulars. So she used to whisper to the care-givers when patients were taking themselves off their drugs, which she could tell by their behavior or they would even tell her. We once had a man who started stalking her when he went off his drugs. It was a huge problem for awhile.

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    3. Clyde, this is an eloquent way to state this (Some disorders just love themselves, protect themselves)! I’m impressed because your statement is so true. Thanks for that. As frustrating as these disorders can be, not to mention the behaviors they trigger, they are even worse for those who have them. It all creates so much suffering.

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      1. Thanks, Jacque. Actually I was “on assingment” for the DNR Volunteer magazine. I got to see Thief River Falls for the first time and meet some interesting people. I will be writing an article on the first MN hunting season on sandhill cranes. Just between us, I’m sorry we have this season, but that isn’t the point of the article.

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      2. Steve, I’m so impressed by this little magazine – we are so lucky to have it (it’s available free, but you can donate annually to help keep it production). Will look forward to your article in it.

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  6. Am I like my older (~really~ older) sister and my older (almost as ~really~ older) twin brothers? I suppose like most families, yes and no. This begs for a ‘nature vs nurture’ discussion but… We all certainly share similar types of humor, levels of obnoxiousness, etc. I tend not to break as many laws of physics and nature as my left-handed brother. I handle stress better than my sister. My right-handed brother and I are pretty similar now (as compared to our youths) but I don’t have that ‘dangerous escaped sanitarium patient’ look that he gives himself with his ‘flobee.’ I keep telling him that if I had that look, I’d wear -two- hats…with chin straps.

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  7. When I lived where it was warmer Autumn was my favorite season. As a Minnesotan I am much less fond of the change and agree that the fading of the light saddens me.

    I am one of 5 and my mother used to say observing us, “Makes you believe in neither nature not nurture.”

    Enjoy the sunshine whilst you can my fellow babooners!

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    1. typos again…Here is the correct version I am one of 5 and my mother used to say observing us, “Makes you believe in neither nature nor nurture.”

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  8. I also have a sister, who is not much like me, but my daughter is her child–both are very take-charge women. She and I were very very close growing up. We used to call each other Jessica and Lorenzo as teenagers. I married a woman who has much of my sister’s personality, except the take-charge part. My wife is a powerful I (influencer) and my sister is a powerful D (directive). She married a man who looks very much like me; people often think we are brothers or even Twins. She came to the wedding with one of her son’s, who upon watching my daughter take charge of the cermony, which they asked her to do with all her experience, fully realized how much my daughter is like his mother in that way. Meeting lots of of new people at the wedding, we got to explain over and over that it is an accident and not a plan of our mother’s that our names are Cleo and Clyde. And we got to explain that my sister’s son who was there is not my child, he looks so much like me.

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    1. my dads family has 3 brothers and the kids (cousins) didn’t look much alike.
      now we get together as 50 and 760 somethings and all our 20 something and 30 something kids look like multiple sets of twins. pretty funny. my moms side nothing. no dominant features all the kids look like the other side of the family.(glad on both counts)

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  9. Hail, Babooners! It is still summer in the Zimmerman jungle, and shall remain so, ad infinitum. Always 70 degrees and sunny here.
    Have nine siblings – can find similarities with all of them – some are good and some are not so good.
    Steve – love ‘sibble’ as the definition of one sibling! As mentioned before, our family didn’t have a car so we walked everywhere. One of our favorite streets, because it’s name made us laugh, was Dibble Ave. Oh the power of suggestion! -have now created a sing-song ear-worm for jump-rope: ” Steve and his sibble -who lived on Dibble; Going to battle – in northwest Seattle” Glad to hear that time has made things easier between you. And yes, illness helps put things in perspective pretty quickly. Hoping for the best for your sibble.

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  10. My sister and I are different personality types, but we both inherited the frugal gene from our mother. We both wash and reuse aluminum foil, and insist on trying to repair things instead of replacing them.

    My sister is the planner and instigator for the family gatherings. She does the turkey and all the trimmings for Thanksgiving. (I bring rolls and fruit salad and the pies.) Being deficient in hostessing skills, I’m grateful that she’s willing to do that.

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  11. 2 younger brothers here, which, I am told is why I am so bossy.

    I disagree.

    I have a feeling that I am most likely described, if spoken of at all, as being way out in left field and how did she get that way. We all show up at Thanksgiving and make civilized conversation.

    I’m going to be disagreeable about the season change too. We are 4 seasons folks at our house and enjoy all of them (with the possible exception of summer, if it gets too hot). The equinox puts me in squirrel mode, storing away as much good stuff from the garden and market to be enjoyed during the cold months. One of the best words we know is “cozy”, autumn is all about cozy.

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  12. My brother and I are enough alike that my sister-in-law teases us about it. We express these similarities differently – he uses his need to build and be creative in the lucrative career field of mechanical engineering. I fell into theater and set construction. He is better at math and I am better with words, and we have used those strengths to help each other (and then use the creative and technical stuff differently – he with his engineering, me with web content and technical writing).

    We have very similar communication patterns, which means it’s both easy and hard to talk about feelings or “in our heads” stuff (both being somewhat stoic Scandinavians). We have our quirky ways of getting through to each other, though. When I was out of work, he expressed his concern by hiring me to paint a house he was rehabbing. When he was going through a rough patch, I brought him chocolate chip cookies and beer. We do a lot of talking in partial sentences (which is the part that amuses my sister-in-law, especially if we are working on a project together and no one but the two of us knows what we’re talking about).

    One big difference: I have more hair. 🙂

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    2. My brother (a true red head) had great hair until it started to disappear. He might still, with what’s left, but it’s hard to tell since he keeps what’s left very close cropped to his head.

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  13. OT Announcement The StarTrib is running a story today about opting out of yellow page phone book deliveries. If you go to the web site, there is a link. Three companies have been dumping yellow pages on my door. No more.

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  14. I have always felt like the odd person out when it comes to siblings since I have none. I am an only child who would have had a brother 9 years older. When my mother was 28 years old and 7 months along in her first pregnancy, her appendix ruptured. This being 1949, it was not possible to save the infant boy, and he died a few hours after his delivery. My mother almost died from peritonitis. She had a very anxious time when I was 28 years old and 7 months along in my first pregnancy, and my son was born prematurely. The parallels between the situations were pretty uncanny, although, it being 1983, my son survived. I always wondered what it would have been like to have an older brother. Our daughter was born 9 years after our son. We didn’t intend our children’s birth span to parallel that of mine and my brother. It just turned out like that. It’s pretty weird, when I think about it.

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    2. Those parallels are fascinating, Renee. My mom says I was born a week “early” and weighed 6# 7oz. My son was also born a week “early” and weighed 6# 7oz.

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      1. My father was born 7 months after my grandparents got married, but he was in no way premature! I asked my mom about it once, and she said “Oh, those things happened back then, too.”

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  15. Ah, I love the Fall Equinox even though it means the dark is coming. I love how so many things change to the autumn palate (even leaves on the peony bushes). What makes me crazy is daylight savings time – I would much rather experience the change gradually instead of the sudden hour diffences at beginning November and March, and right now I’d rather have the light in the early morning than the evening. Lived in Indiana for a couple of years, where they’ve chosen to skip DST, and loved it.

    I am grateful to have my sister Sue, and wish we lived closer (she’s in Berkeley area). We have very different skills and points of view and styles of doing things, but similar values usually, and we look more alike all the time. She’s smart and ambitious and stretches me in unexpected ways. When we were just into adulthood, it was a bit rocky until I expressed to her how much I wanted her approval, even though she was 4 years younger. We’ve supported each other from afar through our dad’s and my son’s deaths, and as my mom continues to age.

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    1. Love fall.
      Love DST.
      That’s the relationship my sister and I had for years. We did not fight or anything; life just sort of separated that very close relationship. But we still are attached. I am so grateful she and one of her three kids were able to make it to the wedding.
      One wedding story for you all: it was a very joyous wedding, in the Spanish Village Arts Shops courtyard in Balboa Park. So my daughter as the officient had her daughter when she was the flower girl come down the aisle throwing the flower petals in the air over the audience. She did the same on the way out.

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    2. You’re lucky to have a sister, Barbara. I wish I had one.

      I like hibernating, stocking up food and getting cozy, but the darkness frustrates and depresses me. I wish we could have 12 hours equally sun and moon all the time.

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  16. Morning–
    or at least it still is as I start writing here…

    Fun reading of sibbles / siblings and relationships…
    In regard to the autumnal equinox, part of the beauty of living here is the changing of the seasons. I love springtime and the smell of the dirt and planting crops. And I love fall and the harvest and plowing the fields up again; a chance to start over and try it again.
    Winter is a chance to relax and not worry about the crops. (It was a different kind of work when I was still milking cows– more things to deal with in the cold). Summer is nice but I’m not a fan of the really hot weather…

    Almost lunch time here in the jungle… 2.5 speakers down and they’ve all been very good active, speakers…
    The essence of all the speakers? ‘Apply yourself (study), pay attention (go to class), Be Involved (participate)’ and in the end it comes down to ‘Who You Know’. I’m para-phrasing.
    What do you think Clyde?

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  17. Sounds good, Ben. I would add something about finding your joy and risk-taking, even though I cannot say either of those two things reallyt paid well for me.

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  18. Clyde,
    Three of the speakers are sponsored by Monster.com, the job placement company… and you know, now that you mention it, none of the speakers have talked about doing something you enjoy or taking risks… course he’s addressing college students so it’s been more about finding that job in the first place.
    First, get a job. Worry about having fun at it later I guess…

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    1. This does seem to be the way kids are being programmed these days, and I find it sad. The year I taught, I heard so many students say they were interested in studying things, but were taking the business and computer classes. I also found it discouraging that so many felt a college degree was more about a license to make money than an education.

      I sincerely hope that it is still working for them in 20-30 years.

      Not to say that the whole “following your dreams” thing is the perfect path either, goodness knows.

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      1. Well put MIG. There are no guarantees with either path, follow your dream or follow your intended professional prep. How many folks are there who were absolutely promised that the path to riches was learning to program computers? If I had my druthers, I’d rather be a burger flipper with a liberal arts education than a burger flipper who can speak Cobol.

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  19. As the middle child with two brothers, for a long time, I didn’t get along with either brother. We were always fighting about something, haha. Nowadays, I’d have to say, we’re all a lot alike. Not in looks, but in the way we think and do things. My older brother just got his Masters in Library Sciences, I’m a civil engineer, and my younger brother is a computer scientist. I’d rather spend time with my brothers than any of my friends. While we may not be able to finish each other’s sentences, we can all pick out the movie and television references we use, haha.

    We all like similar music, though sometimes I can still surprise my older brother with a musical reference. Take this last weekend for instance. I was in the cities because my future sister-in-law was getting her wedding dress and she wanted me to be there. Something made me think of Tom Waits’ What’s he building? and I started quoting a few lyrics. My older brother looked at me, surprised and said, “you know Tom Waits?” Hahaha, well of course I do, after listening to MPR for so long 🙂

    When we were younger, I didn’t think I would ever get along with my brothers. I guess it helps to grow up a bit…

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    1. Alanna,
      Speaking of movie references, one of my favorite stories about my brother:
      the whole family is on a family vacation to celebrate my parents 50th Wedding anniversary.
      Late at night, kids are all in bed, my siblings and spouses are sitting up talking and there is some Western movie on TV. Bad guy rushes into a house, good guy rushes up and pounds on the door. My brother, to quote Monty Python says ‘Tell him we already got one!’ And I was able to jump right in with ‘Your Mother was a hamster and your father Smelt of Elderberries!’ and we both just burst out laughing. I think he’s the one that taught me about Monty Python in the first place…

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  20. While I don’t have siblings, I do have a best friend, the one I posted about who who sucked her thumb, and I think we function quite alot like sisters. She is estranged from her only sister, and her parents are deceased, and I forsee us taking care of one another when we are really old. We argue and irritate each other, defend each other, and start off where we left off no matter how long its been since we’ve seen one another. Does that sound like siblings to you who have siblings?

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    1. I’d say you have a sister there, Renee.

      Since my parents did not see fit to provide me with a sister (I kept asking for a dog and they kept bringing home these brother things), I had to go our and find one for myself.

      Luckily, I found someone in a similar situation and we have declared ourselves sisters ever since. People often think we ARE sisters, so I guess we must act like we are.

      She has no children and so has “adopted” the s&h as a sort of nephew. If anything happens to me, that is the first place he goes. Doubtless, he is going to be saddled with both of us when we are well and truly “old” (she plans on living well until 150). We check in with each other after visits with the “bio-families” to re-affirm our sense of self.

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      4. yep good tie in to my one of my fav’s
        i was also thinking about kurt talking about his mom and later his son with mental illness that followed them. he talked about how the missing chemical would fit on the top of a pin and if they could get that in their body at the same level as the rest of us it would make them able to cope like the rest of us, but how without it they were destined to continue down the same difficult path which in their cases led to their deaths

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    2. I am very grateful to also have women friends who are like sisters. I already know that one of them will be the friend I have to take care of, be in contact with the family, etc. as she ages – she us unmarried (and of an age when it is becoming less likely that she might yet find “the one), and has no children. Her brother is in another state, and cousins are in Wisconsin. I know this, even though I probably won’t have to do anything about it for 20 years or so – but am watching my mother do the same for her close friends.

      The other friend is married, but also childless – sibling is (currently) in Alaska, and his kids are in Alaska, Oregon and points beyond. I will, I’m sure, be an assist for her in her later years as well.

      And I’m happy to be there for both of them. Like I know they will be for me.

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      1. i am happy for you. my oldest friend is on the death spiral slide and i don’t know how to pull him out. he is drinking too much. hiding out form reality and bobbing and weaving so badly i would write him off if he weren’t such a good friend

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  21. My wife has one younger sister, with whom, of course, she had constant childhood battles, which astounded me when I married her to hear this.
    My brother, seven years older than I am, shared a room and a bed so we had a problem now and then but rarely, in part because of the big age gap. My sister and I can remember one fight between us, and my mother does not remember that one. My wife is asounded at that.

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  22. Report on tim at the Twins game: Twins only played started 3 regulars but won 5-1. They got the game in before the storm hits up there. But it has hit here. I will be wet when I get home later.

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    1. the three were who? span valentia and kuebel dhing? or butera?
      great stuff.
      blackburn was scary 1st inning but had two in a row with 4 pitches each. he was great once he got going.

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  23. The vernal equinox usually falls on my birthday. I like the increasing light and having what I feel is an auspicious birthday. My feelings about the autumnal equinox are more complex. The running weather is great once the light starts to fade, but running out of light makes even running a challenge. Two of my kids are really into snowboarding, and I love winter running, so we’re not the type of family that become winter hermits.

    The similarities and differences between my sisters and me are complex. We can see how different we are, but we often answer in unison with similar gestures when presented with a question. We have mostly the same feelings about politics. We all kept our names after marriage. That said, we all have very different types of lives and friends. I think the similarities and differences often reside in the eyes of the beholder.

    Really late to get here today. My job just keeps me SO busy. Happy Wednesday!

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  24. I’m really late today too – very busy at work!

    I have two brothers who are four and six years younger than me. We are completely different in all ways. They are totally conservative, fiscally and socially, planned their lives from the moment they were old enough to make plans, finished their college degrees and got married when they felt they were ready. They are cautious in everything and strongly believe that we pay too many taxes.

    I took care of them a lot when we were kids. I was the oldest, the “responsible” one. But I never finished college, I played around and got hurt, never got married, never had kids and went to work for the State (welfare)! I had fun, but now I’m older and I wish I’d invested in some of that serious life planning stuff! They still treat me differently – as if I burned out my brains and can’t understand things. They even talk down to me sometimes. We’re not best friends. I respect them for their achievements, but I could never call them compassionate people. I think they are the ones who don’t understand… we have extremely different values. I’m glad I am the way I am but I must have been the milkman’s kid. Mom won’t admit it though. And I look like my dad.

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    2. everone has baggage and skeletons. it could be worse. it could be better. i like you the way you are and i wouldn’t hold the fact that you have two brothers canceling out your vote against you.

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