it's never as green as it is in June
Uncle John said to me once,
It’s never as green as it is in June.
How grateful am I that my son was born in June. I’m a January child – when it’s monochrome white with brilliant blue and the silhouettes of trees are uncomplicated by their crown of leaves.
But it’s never as green as it is in June, with summer solstice always coming too soon. At the moment I begin to trust the invigorating, unquenchable life opening all around me, I’m conscious that I’m also simultaneously speeding towards its end.
But we’ve hardly begun summer, I always think. How can the days already begin their wane?
Equinox will slowly close the aperture on our star. The wasps will emerge en masse from their paper nests to threaten me and I will find their small bodies on my window sills. The red-winged blackbirds make a demure exit, like slipping out of a party. Canada geese are gauche; honking their announcements for weeks on end. And then some stay the winter anyway.
The seasons change in such charming and familiar ways.
Spring is slow to ready. She knows you will wait for her to grow stunning and celebrated, and so she mucks about barefoot and uncaring, until she feels it’s time to emerge. Whether she’s late or early, it’s her decision. She reveals a bud. A red admiral butterfly. A bloom of dandelions. The first hail storm. And we are carried away in the bliss of her sensuality.
Summer in Saskatchewan is a reckless beauty of absolute indulgence. She soars through each day, unrecognizing the start or finish. A Janis Joplin for Mother Earth’s daughter: Tomorrow never happens, man. It’s all the same fucking day, man, she cackles. And she puts her feet up and takes a nap in the front yard, and while her eyes are closed and she is unaware of her surroundings, the party turns to soup making and utterances of I think I need to put on a sweater and baths and slanted light. Autumn has stepped in and is the older sister who has the sense to put Summer to bed. To put us all to bed.
But Autumn does not stay long. Her long strides and long shadows carry us in splendour to meet our inevitable Winter. And we are quieted clutching our memories of picnics and easy bike rides. Our bare skin retreats into flannel and wool. The windows frost and furnaces roar. If one successfully captured all that summer offers, one might even be relieved for this new state.
But an abiding warmth lives beneath, and will be coaxed to flame again. The axis shifts, the days lengthen and it will once again never be as green as it is in June.
july 11
Saskatchewan Jazz Festival
Saskatoon, SK
with Johnny Reid, Alex Cuba, Jeffery Straker
tickets
july 13
Big Flat Folk Festival
Eastend, SK
with Colter Wall, Blake Berglund, Del Barber, Noeline Hofmann, Zachary Lucky, Lachlan Neville, Gil and Wil
~ sold out ~
september 7
Homestand Festival
Ross Wells Ball Park
Moose Jaw, SK
with 54•40, Toque, The Steadies
tickets
We recommend the Music Fest in Duncan.Lotsa good times, great event.