Today is the first day of Summer, and that’s good news.
Not because I love Summer. Actually, Summer is my least favorite season. Having spent so much of my life in the South, it’s already hot enough, thank you very much. Don’t really need to belabor the issue any further. No, the best thing about the first day of Summer is that it’s the longest day of the year. Because what happens after the longest day of the year? That’s right! The days start getting shorter again!
When the days get shorter, that means Autumn is on the way, and Autumn is absolutely my favorite time of the year. Besides the excellent weather and changing/falling leaves, there’s football, and holidays leading right up to Christmas. Oh yeah! And my birthday, and Russ’ birthday, let’s not forget those!
As much as I love having all this daylight (sometimes it’s light outside till way past eight o’clock!), I’m really looking forward to the shorter days. I don’t know why, but I love it when I get out of work and dusk is already falling, and as we’re driving home, the streetlights are coming on, and that restaurant with the mid-century modern angle to the roof turns on an orange neon light, and everything is getting quiet, and now just seems like the perfect time to go home and cocoon in your comfy house.
In Autumn we eat soup. We drink lots and lots of hot tea. The smells are cinnamon and apples and nutmeg. The colors are orange and cranberry and deep rich browns and purples. We wear sweaters, and big wooly socks. And boots. I would much rather wear boots than sandals.
So from this point on, I’ll be looking forward to the days getting shorter. I’ll look forward to the shortest day of the year, just around Christmas…but then, the days will start getting longer again. In January, maybe it will snow. And after that, I may finally be ready once again for the days to lengthen, and for the air to warm, and I may actually look forward to putting away the thermal longjohns, and start looking for the bright green buds on the naked trees.
But for right now…yea, Summer! Now that we’ve reached the pinnacle, we can once again begin that slow, easy and delightful downhill journey into a wonderful Autumn filled with all its usual seasonal magic.
