Today, the sun stretched the day as long as it could reach. And I was mostly inside. Inside my car. Inside my office. Inside a school. Inside for a kid appointment.
The solstice always makes me feel melancholy, no matter which way the Earth is tilting. Probably more so in summer, because I am keenly aware of how fleeting this season is. How much I wish summer lasted longer.
Gone are the lazy summers of my childhood. Oh, those days were glorious. A summer was like a year. A lot could happen when school was out, and there wasn’t much to mark the time except our parents calling us home for dinner across the neighborhood. I remember laying in the grass and staring up at the silvery cottonwood leaves as they shimmied in the summer breeze as my mind wandered. I remember lemonade stands, capture the flag in the dark, and endless imaginative play up and down our country lane.
Now, I feel frenzied. Work doesn’t slow down in June. There’s no summer break aside from a few long weekends and a week off. Before and after work I shuttle my kids to various places and activities. And in the margins of each day, I’m trying to make summer sweet and fun for our family. I’m learning to accept the reality that their childhood in the 2020s in the city is different from mine in the 1990s in rural Minnesota. It can still be magical, in its own way, but it’s not the same. And being an adult in the summer is so much less fun than being a kid. I miss those days.
Today, after a whirlwind of All The Things, and 90 degree heat beating down, we decided to go to a local lake for a swim after supper. We were only there thirty minutes before it was time to go home to get ready for bed. The kids wanted to stay longer. “That was too short!” they complained. I totally get it. “We can come again next week,” I promised. And why not? Summer’s only just started, after all. We’ve got lots of days like this to come.
Do you get summer FOMO? Fear of missing out? I do. It’s June 21, technically the first day of summer, and I’m already anxious about it ending. I’m already worried I’ll forget to do enough fun things, not read enough books, not make the most of each warm summer day.
How can I make this fleeting summer stretch like the longest day?
I think it may have something to do with mindfulness. Gratitude. Staying in the present. Now that we have a few specific things on the calendar, I need to stop looking at it. I need to stop counting the days. I need to stop lamenting that it’s “too short” and instead simply enjoy the fleeting summer splendor every chance I get.
As I type this, the sun has just now set below the horizon. It’s a few minutes past 9pm and my living room is dark. The longest day is over.
Happy summer solstice, Northern Hemisphere. And to those in the South, tomorrow we’ll start giving you your daylight back—but first, we’re going to make the most of it while the light lasts.
—NK