Summer’s Solstice

I took a break for a couple of weeks. I simply didn’t write anything nor did I read terribly much, either.  I wasn’t/am not burned out with writing but I had nothing terribly new to add to the internet’s conversation. My days were also structured differently, Mr. C was home for a few weeks and in his usual blur of activity most days began at dawn as he started six jobs at once and finishing at least four of them by dusk.  It’s not my organizational method but it (mostly) works for him.

It was good to hear his exuberant baritone voice echoing through the often too quiet house. Yes, it was a pain in the neck to keep up with the sweeping because man and dog track through dirt constantly. That’s what happens when you live in a rickety house in the middle of a field. And somehow Piper hasn’t been trained to take off her paws when she comes in the house. I’m working on Mr. C…but just his shoes, not his “paws”.

I’m hopeful he will be back by the holiday weekend. My little big town boasts a fantastic fireworks display on the town’s lake; it would be fun to gather with my tiny tribe as we did last year to watch the sun set over the mountains and the pyrotechnics light the sky.  He was missed last year, hopefully his west coast adventure won’t keep him away.

I’m writing this on the evening of the Solstice and I realized it was a year ago he left for his other home near the Canadian border in New York. So much has happened in this year. I feels decades older as far as wisdom goes and my heart is decades lighter. He came home to a woman who has rehab’d her broken back as much as it’s going to rehab; a woman who isn’t relying on muscle relaxers to get through household chores; a woman who has gained her muscle mass lost because of the injury. He came home to a woman who understands the power of isolation and the desire for a balance between isolation and community.

I love the Solstice both winter and summer. Summer isn’t the signal the days will shorten because in reality while the days grow shorter by seven seconds until December 21st; we enjoy summer type weather well into October. I can’t be bothered thinking about the shortening days until I’m switching on lights at 5:30.

Winter Solstice holds for me the cocoon of contemplation and hope. It will be four or five months after that long winter night before we enjoy a day’s sun that doesn’t snap with cold but each day after 12/21 will be seven seconds longer.

In the meantime, after I finish writing this and putting it in the queue on hootsuite, I will sit on the lounger–covered in sweat and bug spray–to say good night to the sun just after nine pm. Winter staved off by the dog days of summer.