...the retreat of the sun into the southern sky, imperceptible at first, but now impossible to miss. The angled light is somehow softer—still bright, but not as harsh to the eyes.The two Equinoxes don't mean as much to me. I'm more of a Solstice kind of guy. In the Winter, the Solstice gives me hope. It's the shortest day of the year. Even though the days are cold, and the sun is weak, and snow hampers our travels, I can count on the Sun getting stronger and stronger each day and setting later and later each evening.
Unfortunately, the Summer Solstice, which usually falls on June 21 in the Northern Hemisphere, has the opposite effect on me. The Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year. The Sun is high in the sky, and we have plenty of time after supper to enjoy the outdoors. This is as good as it gets. But after June 21, it's all downhill, and I feel sad. The Sun sets a little earlier each day. It moves further away.
As Slywy wrote, it's "imperceptible at first." But by the time the Autumnal Equinox arrives, the amount of light we enjoy during the day diminishes at its fastest rate. Noontime shadows creep northward every day.
I'm thinking now of the Rachel Field poem, "Something Told the Wild Geese".
Something tells me to start looking for a new snow plow service.
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Nothing seems to drop a hint to the wild geese in Chicago—they seem to be here year 'round.
I notice the shortening days, too, after winter solstice, and the lengthening days after summer solstice, but in both cases it usually takes the equinox for me to absorb how much things have changed. It just seemed to happen earlier this year . . .
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