It's the summer solstice, here in the Northern Hemisphere at least, and time to begin a new thread. For those of us with kids who are on a school schedule, the summer solstice is often one of those time-markers that pass without notice. There's no artwork coming home, no teachers reading new-age board books to the preschoolers announcing the longest day and shortest day of the year, no first-graders asking if they can stay up really, really late on a school night to see when sunset is.
I've been thinking about suns and sunset ever since Sunday, when I read that enticing article in the NY Times Travel section about Iceland, and a two week visit in which the sun never sinks below the horizon, in which they're so high up toward the North Pole that around the solstice, there's just no darkened night. The description grabbed by imagination. I wanted to drop everything to sit in geothermal baths outdoors and feel the strangeness of time passing without the usual rhythms of night and day.
It's those new rhythms of family life that we're getting used to around here. What is it they say? Don't get too used to anything with a baby, something will change before you know it. How true, and for older kids too. My eldest daughter started day camp. We all love that it starts later that school did. Drop off isn't till 8.45-9 am. We envisioned sleeping until 8, easily getting dressed, brushing teeth, and heading out the door just in time. I've never been an early morning riser, so you can imagine my glee. Sleeping till 8 sounds almost glamorous. Anything can happen when you've slept that late.
Go figure. My daughter S, who must be pulled and coaxed out of her bed for nine months of the year, has changed her tune. At six am she wakes up, pulls on her robe and flies into my room for a quick cuddle. After, she walks to the bathroom, flushes the toilet, and voila, little sister is awake too, the baby who goes to sleep so easily, and wakes quite easily, too. Day has started.
So much for plans, but haven't I learned in seven years of motherhood that plans are made to be broken, that they often don't pan out? Alas no. I could learn such soul-resting lessons, but mostly what motherhood has taught me in that regard is that if I plan the details and think about the elements ahead of time, chances are that things will work out. Not the big things in life, the ones that we all know are uncontrollable, but the little things. Like making sure the pool bag is packed, with snacks and water, when I leave to pick S up at camp. Like keeping the grocery list so that there's food in the house for dinner. Like starting to pack a week ahead for a trip, and keeping lists and remembering to fill the gas tank the night before. Motherhood has taught me to plan, and that planning is the way to feel in control.
It's the rhythm of the year, then, that reminds me of the opposite, that planning is great for what it is, but all the plans in the world can't make a seven-year-old sleep past 6 if what she wants is to roam around the house doing projects, play in the backyard before breakfast and while the morning birds sing, and thrill when she realizes it's Wacky Wednesday Zoo Animal day at camp, and Mom, can you face-paint me like a pink bunny rabbit? I didn't even realize they had pink bunny rabbits in the zoo, but thank goodness the face-painting book includes bunny rabbits and I can copy their idea onto my daughter's face.
Ah, summer solstice. The day is hot and the day is long. It will be so no matter what I do, and perhaps that, and the new 6 am wake-up hour in my house, are my best reminders that best intentions aside, we are not always in control. That’s my summer solstice reminder, and I’ll think about it as I marvel at how long the sun tonight will last