"THERE IS NOTHING NEW UNDER THE SUN," ECCLESIASTES 1:9

Every year June 21, the longest day, is shortly followed by the anniversary of my son's death from cancer, July 17.  We all have anniversaries like these, when we remember--maybe with hard-won peace, maybe with brought-to-your-knees pain--the day someone we love began their eternal walk with God.  These are the people who matter to us both in their presence and in their absence.  They are repositories of love wherever their bodies lie.

The very strong memories of my son's last days begin their march to the foreground on the Summer Solstice because in our side-yard sits the cast-iron sundial my son and his wife gave to my mother, their first gift to her as newlyweds.  She kept it in a garden next to the creek behind her porch.  Six years later cancer took them both, she at 82 and he only 33.  

This year we were at Stonehenge just a week before the Solstice.  We weren't there at sunrise and it wasn't the longest day, but it was a reminder of the turning of the wheel as the earth's axis tilts at its closest point from the sun.  Awe and curiosity might be the most common emotions in the presence of these stones.  But I also felt the movement toward my heightened annual pangs of loss and thanksgiving.  Who hasn't had these? 

Like Stonehenge, my precious marker is both clock and calendar.  But for me the time it marks is liminal.  The young man it recalls is eternal.  The promises it keeps are strong.  The way the sundial sat as a sentry to my mother's leafy nook, it sits next to our side door, wed to the moss at its base.  I haven't moved it in the 18 years since my father said, "Please keep mama's sundial."  

The grandchild born just days after the death of her father will be 18 herself soon.  When we lose someone, new life often follows.  That's the way it is.  New babies, new relationships, new blessings follow even the hardest parts of being human.  We never stop living until our own sun sets.  And even then, the wheel keeps turning. 

What I am writing is not confined to any one age.  The insights, if there are any, are ancient.  When you see a site like Stonehenge, built during the Neolithic period, or Angkor Wat in Cambodia or Machu Picchu in Peru or others I haven't seen as well, the message is continuity.  "There is nothing new under the sun," saith the preacher. "What has been will be again; what has been done will be done again."  (Ecclesiastes 1:9) This may or may not seem consoling.  But I tend to think that, as Godly wisdom, it is.  Others have been where we are now.  God has been where we are now.  We are not alone.  Never alone.  AMEN

THE LONGEST DAY. LET US REJOICE

 

Today is our longest day.  Every summer since the earth began to turn and the sun began to shine we have had our longest day and then, in December, our longest night.  In the southern hemisphere, where our friend Peter lives, today is his shortest day and in December will be his shortest night.  He is tucking in early while we stretch with the hours of extra light.  For friends vacationing in Iceland this week, the sun sets at 1 a.m. and rises at 2--one brief hour of twilight.  The warmth of sun and the chill of the moon, equally embraceable. 

Now I catch myself--why did I say "our" and "his"?  The summer solstice isn't mine.  Even the few acres of meadow and woods that have my name on the title in the local register of deeds don't belong to me.  How could a 100-year-old shaggy bark hickory be mine? It has its own history, its own future. How could the boulders of the Triassic Basin that hunker down in my yard belong to naught but the ages?  Or the grove of beeches?  We are care-takers with fiduciary duties to our progeny for generations to come. Almost everything that matters predates us and lives on beyond our passing.  The psalmist says, "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom." Psalm 90:12.

But then I think again.  Today is ours, isn't it?  

We have on average just under 29,000 days on earth. This may seem like many or or it may seem like few. But each of them is ours.  I'm spending my summer solstice day at the coast, as luck would have it.  The sun doesn't set in the ocean this time of year, but the sunset will be late and brilliant, the way it is on a mostly cloudless day.  Otherwise nothing special.  Maybe a bike ride or fresh-caught fish for supper; my husband is out now with rod and reel.  Most years we are at home, but one special anniversary year we were in Fairbanks, Alaska.  A little dusk and then the sun reappeared. 

The psalmist also says, "This is the day that the Lord hath made.  Let us rejoice and be glad in it."  Psalm 118:24.  That's so easy on a day like today.  Some days I'm pessimistic.  Aren't we all?  Some days we feel frail and tattered from the news, or a dreaded doctor's appointment, or one of those things that can crack a heart.  But today the light sings without ceasing, telling us that the day is blessed because it is the one we have.  Dear God, help me remember this tomorrow.  

Nina Naomi

SUMMER SOLSTICE → LOVING IT ALL!

June 21, 2016, 11:41 PM, Crowden Park, Fairbanks, Alaska

The longest day is tomorrow.  Five years ago to the day we were in Fairbanks, Alaska for the longest day.  Our most memorable summer solstice ever. Well, to be honest, many years the day passes without our notice.  I wish now that when we lived in England we had paid more attention; the summer evenings are so leisurely that far north. You can enjoy the theatre and if you live in central London, walk home in daylight.  One year we were in Norway, days even longer, taking pictures on a midnight hike of sheep grazing, then falling into a brief sleep as day turned to dusk then to day again.  No night at all.

In Fairbanks we went to the traditional minor league baseball game that begins at 10 pm, no lights needed.  When it ended we realized we had no way back to our cabin; the shuttle stops on its own schedule. Two women offered us a ride in their hatchback; grateful, we accepted.  One problem: we had to ride in the dog kennel, which took up the only available space.  Bent over we crawled in and smelled like dog by the end of the ride. Somehow this is a wonderful memory.

Atlantic Beach, North Carolina

This year we are at the beach doing pretty much nothing.  Not enough to create a lasting memory but nowhere else I'd rather be.  Biking, blogging, shelling, collage-making, cooking, walking Mr. Wiggles . . . all with a view. It's a vacation. 

I've also been thinking about ways to enjoy the rest of the summer, when the heat gets over-whelming, as it does in North Carolina: sand hot enough to blister, asphalt on fire, humidity soaking even the flimsiest tops, instant melt.  A sort of Heat Hacks of the day list, more tried-and-true than new: 

Come in from the heat; enjoy the air-conditioning.  Or if you've been avoiding all fresh air, do something outside and then come in and enjoy the air-conditioning.  The contrast feels great.

Sit, lie, twirl under a fan; children love fans.  Did you ever sit in front of a fan as a kid?  I did.  With my body itching from poison ivy, my mother would douse me in Calamine and plop me just inches from our floor fan.

If you can, watch a movie only you want to see.  On a weekend this is luxurious; on a weekday pure decadence.

Play a board game, or cards, with the children.  The only exertion is laughter.

Spread lotion on your parched skin; do the same for a child.

Pour something alcohol-free over ice, add lemon, and drink it down; make a glass for someone else.

Pile your hair up.

Keep your shoes off, wear a cami and something loose, anything .

Put out some nectar. Admire a hummingbird.  Be glad we don't have to move that fast.

Give the plants a drink.  If you're watering outdoors, soak your feet too.  Or legs, or whole self. 

Stretch every which way, high, to the right, to the left, arms, neck, torso, hamstrings . . . .

Cool off the dog with a nice bath, even if he's not in the mood.  Talk to him lovingly.  These aren't called dog days for nothing. 

Read, of course read, and write.

And the most obvious: wild swim, pool swim, hose-down, any wet choice at all.  And if skinny-dipping is an option . . . well there you go.

On the longest day, especially if you too have some time off, who knows how many or few ways you might decide to spend your daylight.         

 

 

 

  

SLOW JOURNEYING THROUGH ALASKA

Glaciers, Prince William Sound

My husband and I spent many months planning what he calls our Great Alaska Adventure, June-July 2016.  We began with five nights in Fairbanks in a cabin on the banks of the Chena River.  We did everything local we could find--a Fish bake with wood-grilled salmon, wild Alaskan cod, and snow crab; a summer solstice baseball game lasting into the wee hours of the morning; a river cruise by stern wheeler; and a visit to the training grounds of the Iditarod dogsled team. We used local shuttles to get from one adventure to another.

We plunged into the scenic wilderness of central Alaska by taking the Alaska Railroad Goldstar domed train to Denali National Park.  There we hiked, rented self-drive jeeps and photo-hunted moose and the elusive Denali.  We took the same train to Anchorage and rented a car for the drive to Alyeska, a glacier-carved valley in Girdwood, Alaska.  In the midst of seven glaciers, Alyeska became our base camp for trips to Whittier and the glaciers of Prince William Sound and Seward and Resurrection Bay.

On the road 

Amazingly, we saw every single bird, fish and mammal we hoped to encounter, from moose to whales, to puffins, to otters, to seals, to birds of every variety.  The rookeries lining the cliff edges of Prince William Sound were so swirlingly noisy they outdid even the waterfalls.

Rookery, Prince William Sound

Now we monitor the Fairbanks weather and sunlight.  On December 21, the winter solstice, the sun rose at 10:50 a.m. and set at 2:41 p.m.  Three hours forty-two minutes of daylight!  There were fireworks downtown to celebrate the shortest day.  I wish we had been there.