Daisy Chains & Dreaming of the Solstice

We ate bowls of fruit for breakfast, walked around, and returned to the garden before the sun escaped for the day.

I typed away on my laptop as Madeline did cartwheels and headstands on the grass. We would make eye contact while she was upside down and just laugh at one another.

She suggested having a Solstice party on June 21st. I told her I'd never had a Solstice party before, so she described how in Maine, depending on traditions, people celebrated by baking treats, watching sunsets, and awaiting gifts from the Solstice faeries.

She sat at the pool's edge, braiding a daisy chain, which she later clipped to my curtain by the window. Last Autumn, she folded a rose for me from maple leaves, which now hangs just across from the daisies—it has dried beautifully and kept so well.

Now I understand how each drop of rain must be destined for its spot on the earth, how each shard of sunlight must have a shadow to brighten.

You have to doubt what you believe and believe what you doubt. You have to work each long furrow of the heart whose seeds will surprise you like the hidden stars of daylight.

These seemingly ordinary afternoons, quiet conversations, and thoughtful gestures from a dear friend are precisely what I'll look back on and miss most when I move away again.

But I'm not dwelling on that right now. We've just moved forward an hour due to Daylight Savings. Madeline wasn't sure if we should move forward or back, but after reciting 'Spring forward, Fall back' repeatedly for about a minute, she finally remembered.

Now, thanks to her, I'll always remember too.

On Sunday we made vegan protein balls with plain oats, almond butter, cacao, chia seeds & raw shredded coconut, lay in the garden & cycled in the park. I hadn't been on a bike in a very long time and it felt so nice and so freeing. It was all blue skies—sunshine and daisies and long green grassy fields around us, it was so blissful.

That evening I dreamt of free falling into a bed of velvet petals, and awoke feeling as though I’m late for something. These days, I feel I anticipate myself.

Sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love

(all the merry little birds are
flying in the floating in the
very spirits singing in
are winging in the blossoming)

Lovers go and lovers come
awandering awondering
but any two are perfectly
alone there's nobody else alive

(Such a sky and such a sun
I never knew and neither did you
and everybody never breathed
quite so many kinds of yes)

Not a tree can count his leaves
each herself by opening
but shining who by thousands mean
only one amazing thing

(Secretly adoring shyly
tiny winging darting floating
merry in the blossoming
always joyful selves are singing)

Sweet spring is your
time is my time is our
time for springtime is lovetime
and viva sweet love” 
― E.E Cummings