At the Ferris Wheel's Top

On the longest day of the year, small waves lapped against a raft.  A lone a swimmer oared leisurely along, his arm a sail raised repeatedly against the sky. A sudden breeze arose and the water's surface, cracking into a million shards of blue, coral and lemon, became an Impressionist painting: Monet's water lilies without the lilies.It was the longest day of the year, with many such long days to come yet and the wooden dock on which I lay felt smooth. Its wooden planks, gone silver with age, drank in the sun’s warmth.An hour before sunrise, I had risen to look for a window I could lie down next to. I do this to catch the Early Show put on by birds who swoop so close to our house they seem like aircraft, cleared one by one for flight. So fast do they pass I can detect neither species nor even color, only glimpsing in a flash the fuselage of an underbelly, the landing-gear of two tucked-up feet.At 8:00 I stepped outside and onto the now-hot griddle of sidewalk, across which an ant lumbered as ants always lumber, bearing their burden of crumbs or fallen comrades.Just nine weeks before this day it had snowed in this cove, the day before Easter or not. Six weeks after that, tornadoes skipped and whirled and set devastatingly down across the region.One early evening this past winter, four deer came over the deep, deep snow to nibble roots at the edge of the thick-frozen lake. The deer were starving, the papers all said, and they certainly seemed to be in sore need the way they came so close to our house, their antlers held aloft like complicated branching torches.Was it just four months ago? It seems from here an eternity. But Time plays tricks on us in this small season.  As I lay on that longest-day dock, the breeze stretched a new canvas over the frame of lake and did another killer impression of Impressionist painting: a Van Gogh this time, I thought.On how many a summer solstice have we stretched out on docks and decks and sun-warmed stoops, thinking each time that June would last forever? In her novel 2007 The Maytrees, the wonderful Annie Dillard says, “Old people were not incredulous at having once been young but at being young for so many decades running” she then thinks and as I read this passage on that dock I smiled at its wisdom. It’s true: People are young and for so many decades running. All of the living are young, as any bird or ant can tell you.Such were my thoughts on the year’s longest day with so many such long days to come yet.

Amnesty

If there’s one weekend in the year when you can exhale it’s got to be this one with summer about to begin, yet the days still getting longer. There’s an amnesty feeling almost, as if Time has forgotten its chief task of hurrying us all along toward the exits.Even here on the internet things are quieter than a closed library. Winter weekend, rainy weekends it’s practically standing room only online, but today? With temperatures heading for the mid-80s it’ll be a ghost-town here, not counting the faint peeping sound Tweets and status updates coming in through people’s phones.I couldn’t sleep last night. At 3:00 I was wandering from room to room, reluctant to take a sleep aid because I knew the birds would be up talking within the hour. They do that in my part of the time zone: they get up before 4:00. With their happy racket and full daylight by 5:00 I wouldn’t want to be drugged-out and unable to wake when the day began.I work every single day to bring this little gift to you though there's no money in it. And, like millions of others , I buy food and cook it, I work a job and I spend time with our small people, I take our remaining old person out to break the terrible loneliness of the old. I can never sleep late is what I am saying; I feel all that waiting for me and I hate to admit that I'm often anxious.So at 3am today I was dragging my anxiousness with me into the living room, the hallway, the kitchen. There I suddenly heard the solemn tones of the wind chimes I had just hung outside the porch door the day before. They are made of iron and extend five feet down from tip to end and now a stiff steady breeze had called forth their deep belling sounds.I listened and listened, standing in the kitchen. Finally I returned to the bedroom and opened the windows wider to hear them still . And didn't they carry me into three hours of deep refreshing sleep, as they will perhaps do every night now until that far-distant day when the cold returns and the snow begins again to fall.

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~These are not my chimes but they are like mine and will give you the idea. Send not to know for whom the bell tolls. It tolls for thee.~