At Life's Summer Solstice
At Life’s Summer Solstice (Warning: Temporary ranting ahead. Hopefully the last time for a long time …) I have a problem with the solstices. Both summer and winter. For the last God-knows-how-many years, I fall into a funk a few weeks before the longest and shortest day of the year. In early-mid June and December, like clockwork, something shifts, and the world starts looking bleak and sad, hopeless and unpromising. A bi-annual, mini existential crisis smack in the middle of what should be the happiest times of the year. Of course, the December solstice takes place during the Christmas/Chanukah/Kwaanza/New Year holiday season, time of celebration and festivity, magic and wonder, giving and receiving, honoring the past while welcoming new beginnings, possibility and change. The June solstice brings graduations and weddings, school break and vacations, beaches and barbeque, fun in the sun, summertime and the living is easy. Oh, joy. ...