The Determined March of Time at the Summer Solstice

A reflection on the cycles of my world

The summer solstice is almost here. I always fail to notice its impending arrival until a week or two beforehand because June here is a fickle month, often cloudy and mild, occasionally lurching into the 90s for a few days at a time. In other words, it usually feels like spring here until July.

It’s raining as I write this, in fact. The sky is thick with gray clouds. I have a blanket on my lap. If it weren’t for my Wood’s roses in riots of pink blossoms outside the window, I would guess it was April.

I’ve flipped through my datebook recently, though, and noticed that the solstice is about to arrive and I’m having my yearly panic about it. I didn’t pay enough attention to these long days until now! I didn’t sit with gratitude at my window, watching the last of the light disappear at 9PM, thanking the sun for its strength and vibrance at this time of year.

And…in just a few more turns of the clock, the days are going to start getting shorter. How did that happen so quickly? I can’t even say that summer has begun here. It’s been so cool. And yet, in a month, the days will be noticeably shorter, and the month after that, I’ll feel the chill of fall in the nighttime air.

It all goes by so damn quickly.

Maybe all the stars in the night are really dreams Maybe this whole world ain’t exactly what it seems*

My birthday is in two weeks. I always feel nostalgic at this time of year. Scared, even. I know that sounds silly, but another year of my life is over. Did I do enough? Am I moving in the right direction?

I always felt this way — even in my teen years — but even more so now in middle age.

This birthday feels scary to me. Forty-five. Halfway through what I thought would be the most empowering decade of my life. I was going to finally get my shit together during this time. I was going to do all the things I hadn’t yet accomplished. I was going to climb every mountain harder than Maria von Trapp.

But I just lost the one thing my heart had longed for more than anything else in this decade of my life. And I lost it so quickly.

Strangely, I feel even more terrified now. Like this entire decade just ran through my fingers like sand the same way my thirties did. In just a matter of weeks, I’ll be closer to 50 than I am to 40, even though only by a smidgen, but still… That feels like it changes everything.

I’m afraid I’ve lost my last chance at love.

Running after something But I don’t know what Am I running to?*

It’s been a month now. A full month since he edged away.

Not so long ago, I had imagined what the last four weeks would have been filled with: joy and discovery and long calls and laughter and dirty text messages and lots and lots of phone sex.

Week after week passed and there were no such things to fill those days. Instead, I walked through the woods like I always do on June evenings, chasing owls, traveling in endless circles, watching the slant of the sun cut its way across the land until, eventually, there was nothing but blue shadows and gray shadows and the sound of the owlets squawking in the distance.

My feet are falling to the bottom of the ocean Running out of time, out of time*

After a week-long absence, I find the owls again. The older baby has almost lost all his juvenile feathers in this short period of time, in these six or seven days that I’ve been gone.

I watch him intently as I try to creep up behind him without scaring him away. Though I’ve observed baby owls countless times before, I never really noticed how those adult feathers come in like a grid, slowly replacing all the gentle, fuzzy white juvenile feathers. His back and his wings, I realize, vaguely resemble a Tetris grid.

I snap a few photos as he eyes me suspiciously over his shoulder, turning his head so that it looks like his back is his front.

I want to remember this moment. The next time I see him, he’ll look totally different, likely without a piece of fuzz left. And in just a few months, he’ll fly away in search of a mate and will start his own family.

These few long evenings of summer are the only I will have in his presence. This is the only time our paths will cross. And so quickly, so abruptly, he will disappear from my life forever.

High on motion, I can feel it moving forward Running out of time, running out Running out, running out of time*

The strawberries are finally, finally ripening. This is my favorite moment in the garden. I love strawberries so much and nothing at the grocery store compares to the taste — the experience — of strawberries fresh off the plant, warmed by the sun.

I’ve been waiting all year for this moment. I plunge my hands into the patch, searching for those shiny red jewels.

The garter snake that lives there slithers away from my searching fingers, his scales a black gleam. I still have the skin he left me last year sitting on my bookshelf.

I think of this cycle of shedding his skin two or three times a year. What a good trick. Just leave behind the casing that we outgrow every so often. Be born new again and again and again.

I suppose we’ll all do that soon enough. Shed this skin and find ourselves right back in the dirt where I am now squatting.

*Lyrics to Time by Childish Gambino.

© Yael Wolfe 2021

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