Midsummer night, June 21, is the start (not the middle) of summer, not because hot weather or any other nearby thing snaps at our heels and dampens our armpits, but because of events far away in space.\u00a0 The relative position and tilt of sun and earth reaches a\u00a0certain point, then their slants and orbits revert and the days (periods of daylight)\u00a0shorten.\u00a0 We note this cosmic watershed by proclaiming the start of summer, a time for vacation and recreation, books and beaches.\u00a0 Historically, and even in some European and South American countries today, humans note these midsummer days, June 21 – 24,\u00a0by celebrating John the Baptist’s birthday on the 24th, or conversely, by lighting bonfires.<\/p>\n
I’ve been tending growing things for five months now here in Virginia, the Eastern Seaboard, North America, the World.\u00a0 I started at the end of January with snow on the ground just outside the wall of our apartment along which\u00a0I set up the\u00a0grow light.\u00a0 I planted lettuce and bok choi and broccoli with\u00a0great hope, rewarded with plenty of all the above, and still being rewarded with broccoli, less welcome now than when we first started harvesting it a month ago.\u00a0 I’ve planted plenty more these five months, much that’s growing well, some that has yielded its bounty or at least promises to do so soon.\u00a0\u00a0Surrounded by all this green evidence, I\u00a0can’t fathom, my gut can not wrap itself around the reality that I have entered a new era, this next frame of time that will take me through September 21 when I’m hopefully harvesting winter squash and planting fall lettuce, to December 21 when likely I will have brought all of this year’s bounty in, the sheaves carried joyfully to the pantry, the freezer, the table.\u00a0 I haven’t picked bean one, yet I’m on a trajectory to winter.<\/p>\n
I have a sense people and time don’t get along very well.\u00a0 Some, like me, can’t judge time well and find themselves already in the next bit of it.\u00a0 We have a hard time fitting things in to any given allotted portion of the stuff.\u00a0 Others, are ruled by it, live to serve it rather than the reverse.\u00a0 For them punctuality is a cardinal virtue.\u00a0 To be early is to be on time.\u00a0 A schedule and a habit become Holly Writ, the goal rather than the means to accomplishing whatever it is.\u00a0 World cultures fall into these two camps.\u00a0 In some, you drive to the place you’ve been invited to eat supper and wait in the car until almost the exact moment so you can knock on the door at the precisely correct time.\u00a0 In others, the stated time means an hour or more after the stated time.\u00a0 Members of these cultures, when thrown together, are frustrated and confused, as I am now having crossed the mid-summer peak only to be coasting to Christmas.<\/p>\n
I am grateful for things like a\u00a0 garden that requires tending, that changes as it moves through seasons, that forces me to take regular actions in time.\u00a0 I suppose I’m grateful, albeit dubiously so, for bus schedules, work starting and quitting times, for specified mealtimes and, even habits.\u00a0 I don’t get along well with time in a cosmic sense, but I think\u00a0time and I\u00a0can manage pretty well if I connect myself to something that moves along, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day.<\/p>\n
Writing words\u00a0regularly in my journal and on this blog has become another way to move me through, to mark, maybe even connect me to time.\u00a0 The tick-tock of what I write, word after word, whether a long essay, a photo caption, or something in-between, gives form to my experience of time.\u00a0 My dance with words helps me from tripping over my feet as I dance with time.\u00a0 I still can’t believe I’m on the path to winter (the okra, doing well in\u00a0their individual pots\u00a0aren’t even planted, yet).\u00a0\u00a0Words and the garden give me a meter by which I walk each unbelievable step.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Midsummer night, June 21, is the start (not the middle) of summer, not because hot weather or any other nearby thing snaps at our heels and dampens our armpits, but because of events far away in space.\u00a0 The relative position … Continue reading