Summer Solstice

Today I have been working on a section of the new novel that revolves around a baby’s birth, and it has reminded me of the miracle that every new start, every fresh possibility holds.  In honor or this, and of the upcoming longest day of the year, I am posting this section from my book, “You, in Your Green Shirt.”

And, by the way, it turns out that manipulating photographs is an EXCELLENT way to procrastinate; good visuals make for more interesting blogs, after all.

“When I return home after I run, when I am drenched, soaked in sweat, dripping down the sides of my face and stinging my eyes, when I am barely able to peel off the shorts, the socks, the sports bra that are bonded with my skin, when I am fully naked, I tiptoe into Kate’s room and stand in front of the only full-length mirror in the house.  I look at myself. 

I’m not sure why I do this, what I’m looking for. 

I suppose I look for changes.  I try to know myself.  I consider the fact that the next person, that all the next people, who kisses and fondles the breasts that I see in the mirror, this person will not be kissing the breasts that nursed his babies, that squirted him in the shower when the baby cried out from his crib.  He will see the slight puckering of extra skin along the very tops of my inner thighs as just that, extra skin, and not as a remembrance of the births of his own two children.

Yesterday was the summer solstice, the longest day of the year.  The first bird lets out a few tentative notes at around four a.m. now, and the dogs are up by 5:15.  Our routine is the same every single morning, but they are bursting with desire to get out and see it again, to note and rejoice in every single infinitesimally minute change from the day before. 

The world is beautiful at this hour.  Staggeringly beautiful.  Ever day it is brand new.  It is  millions and millions of years old, too, aeons old.  But in its dew-drenched sparkling magnificence, it is full of promise, of all possible promises.  Brand new.  Again.”