Hello -
I woke up on the longest day of the year to the sunrise in northeastern Minneapolis around 6:30am. I went to sleep on the upper peninsula of Michigan, around 10:30pm, right as the sun was starting to set.
A lot of folks like to wax poetic about the summer solstice. The astrological start of summer. The day in the northern hemisphere that the sun sticks around the longest. If Beyoncé has the same number of hours in a day as the rest of us, then all her hours must be something like these.
We’ve worked and trialed and toiled over the past six months - through the darkness of winter and the false hope of spring - to make it to this point. The peak of our collective content. The moment when we can all stop, take a breath, and say “we’ve done it.” All because the Earth has finally managed to tilt itself at just the right angle toward the sun.
Admittedly, I usually miss the build up to the solstice itself. It’s not an easy date on the calendar to remember - like the first of a month or the last day of a year. Despite that, I’ve found myself using this astrological moment as an impromptu point of reflection over the past few years. About six months into the year, I’ve found it’s a great opportunity to look back on the thoughts and dreams and expectations I had for myself on New Year’s Day.
This year, as I was driving across the back highways of northern Wisconsin - car filled with sunlight, Carly Rae Jepsen blasting through the speakers, avoiding the heat wave crushing everyone to the south - I had quite possibly the most daylight possible to reflect on where I’ve been and where I’m hoping to go. Even in just the past six months, some of my expectations from the start of the year have been blown out of the water while others have come wildly true.
What sitting with the sunlight does is allow you to look at these realities for what they are. Not what you wanted them to be or what they could have become, but how they’ve actually played out. In the winter we’re driven by “what if” as a means of survival. In the summer, we’re confronted by “what is” as a means to adapt and grow.
If we’re lucky, the stars and the moon will do their thing to remind us of how fragile and volatile all these structures are anyway. I’m writing this now from a boat, in the middle of Lake Superior, on the day after the summer solstice. It’s been thunder storming since 5:00am, the waves are taller than a professional basketball player, I’ve swallowed 4 Dramamine pills as a means of survival, visibility is down to about 10 feet in front of you, and there isn’t a ray of sunlight in the sky. This is the second longest day of the year, but I don’t think anyone would call it the second brightest.
I’m doing this all to get to a remote island 40 miles off the shore called Isle Royale because I’ve convinced myself I like big trees and pretty rocks and places that are generally hard to get to. The captain has assured us that the island often lives in it’s own little ecosystem and that even though the largest freshwater lake in the world is currently trying to murder me, I should still have a sunny and happy experience once we make landfall.
I think that is what the summer solstice is most about: the opportunity to remind ourselves of the time we have at our disposal. Some of that time is better than our wildest dreams. Some of it makes us want to walk the plank because the frigid waters of the lake surely must be better than whatever is happening onboard right now. The amount of sunshine isn’t necessarily important, but instead what we push through to get it and what we do with it while we have it.
Every day for the next six months is going to be a little shorter than the last. Every day will have slightly less opportunity to bask in the sunlight on the other side of Lake Superior. Some days, that sunlight won’t come at all. But when it does, let’s make a pact to bathe in the glory that it reveals.
-Andrew
By the Numbers:
Hours it took to travel 40 miles across Lake Superior by boat: 3.5
Hours it took to travel 40 miles from my AirBnB to the boat: .8
Numbers in the Fibonacci sequence that the 8 year-old sitting across from me on the boat could recite by memory: 18
Total state license plates ranked in order by the 7 year-old sitting across from me on the boat: 50
What I paid for a glass of lemonade from a stand on the side of the road in northern Michigan during a record heat wave: $5 (highway robbery)
World Review:
I used to think I had a strong stomach. Recent trips across large bodies of water have started to prove me wrong. Popular media would have you believe that boats are these joyful little hamlets of peace that provide joy and reprieve from daily life. And maybe in the right situation that can be true. But as a means of transportation? If you have somewhere to be? With any sort of wind in the area? Absolutely not.
Boats are perhaps the form of transportation most susceptible to the elements and, worst of all, they’re slow - so if you’re being shaken for your life by gigantic waves and bursts of wind you can’t even get away with any sort of speed.
A cruise ship with 14 different stabilizers built in and nowhere to be? Sure. A kayak floating you leisurely down a river? For sure. A small boat in the middle of Lake Superior? No thank you. I get why everyone made such a big deal about Washington crossing the Delaware. The waters are rough, and there simply must be a better way.
Boats: 2/5 Cannons
Roads. The better way is roads. People love to complain about potholes and road maintenance, but do we ever stop to think about how incredible it is that we have a massive cardiovascular network of concrete that connects the continent? Thousands of hands over decades of work have built a system that can allow you to travel, comparatively easily, from the tippity top of Michigan all the way down to Key West. From Portland, Maine to Portland, Oregon. I think that’s pretty magical.
(and don’t tell me water is an issue when I’ve driven myself 24 miles across a lake in Louisiana)
Roads: 5/5 Cannons
Photo Gallery:
Until next time -
Andrew