Stretching the hours

Afternoon camas
Originally uploaded by c'estbonne

Today is the summer solstice, and the eternally long, wet spring has finally stepped aside to grant us the mercy of some sunshine.

Not that I've especially minded some of those cool days, with a gentle cloud cover and a soft rain, the air rich with moisture and fragrant still with fresh green life. This is the time of sweet blooming phlox and fuzzy fledglings, enough daylight hours to do most things you want to do, and bird music – one of my favorite things about spring and early summer. The soft, metered cooing of mourning doves reaches my ears even as i write this; the husky whistles of the nesting osprey; the busy chatter and trill of chickadees and cedar waxwings; even the noisy repertoire of the starlings who nested again above my balcony, decimated a few potted plants, and left some bird paint on my chair cushion the very day I put it outside. But on a day like this, it's easy to forgive.

For all the places I'd still like to visit, the restlessness that makes me want to fly away every other moment into some new adventure, there is still a blessing to be found in the beauty right at home. An ever more important art, I think, given the increasing noise of the world and its gadgets. The quiet call to peace in the chaos is easily missed – and utterly important for a soulful experience of life.