Lighting a Candle
This morning, in the season of “Sweltering Heat,” no less, I had the urge to light a candle. I have not felt inclined to light a candle inside the house since perhaps March or April. (Now, I know, some folks love to light candles all year long - but for me, I lose the urge probably between April and, I guess, now-ish.) This desire to light a candle at 10:00 am on a sunny July morning gave me pause. Why did I want to light a candle? What had changed in me? What had changed around me?
We are in the high summer days, to be sure. The fireflies are flitting in the garden. The orange daylilies are cheering up shadowy forest edges, and the water glistens, just waiting to be jumped into. In the days and weeks ahead, there are BBQs to look forward to, visits to the beaches, and the watermelon hasn’t even started ripening in the garden. Summer is still alive and well. And yet…
It’s been a month since the solstice. A month since the world started turning towards the dark. And the signs of autumn are beginning - some more constructed by humans, and some simply a part of the natural world. For example, I visited a certain store I hadn’t been to in a few weeks, and it was already festooned with autumn regalia. Not a jot of summer remained! As I later texted my family, it was still too early to buy an autumn candle! Who could even think such a thing!?
That was last week…and yet this week - the desire to light a candle naturally kindled. Perhaps this store was more attuned to seasonal shifts than I realized. Or perhaps the seed had been planted.
Then there is the daily reminder of the morning radio during the weather report, when the meteorologist shares how much daylight we have lost or gained every year. (I actually really love that they do this.) Those extra two minutes of light a day felt very hopeful in spring - a reminder that even if nothing at all seemed to be changing around me, at least I got 2 more minutes of sunlight that day! Now, I am reminded of the opposite. Today we will have about two fewer minutes of light than we did yesterday.
This may not seem like a lot, but we have been losing light for a month now, and the darkness seems to be catching up. We still lounge outdoors late into the evening and bask in the twilight glow, but it begins to feel more bittersweet somehow. As my husband and I have been saying this year, “there are only so many weekends in summer,” and each Saturday and Sunday, each evening after work feels precious.
The grasses are all grown now, their seed heads ripening brown and blowing artfully in the wind. Sunflowers, which have been steadily stretching for the sky, have at last found a place of contentment and are opening up. Ironically, it seems like as soon as the sunflower arrives, summer is over and autumn begins. And, if we reckon time by the 24 seasons, the beginning of autumn is only 2 weeks away.
And so, I realized, it makes sense that I would want to light a candle. The Beginning of Autumn, which whispers in right around August 7th, is on the horizon. I feel this pull towards the next season, even if the days are sweltering, even if the AC and cicadas are ambient music; intrinsically, I know that a season of candlelighting isn’t so very far away at all.