The Longest Day of the Year

The summer solstice is almost here, the longest day of the year.

I always love this time of year. Something about it feels like an invitation. Like the light is saying: stay a little longer. Pay attention. There’s time.

By the time you read this, I’ll be up the coast again, this time in Fort Bragg, chasing more of that same quiet I found at the beach a couple weeks ago.

And every year around this time, I ask myself a harder question. How many summers do I actually have left?

Not in a morbid way. In a wake-up way. Because if I only have so many, I want to actually be in them. Not rushing through them, not waiting for September, not too busy to notice my own life while I’m living it.

And I notice something, every time I get away.

I notice how loud the inside of my head gets when I don’t slow down.

The list. The second-guessing. The low-level hum of did I do that right, should I have said that differently, what’s next.

It takes a day or two by the water before it quiets.

And then, when it does, I remember that I actually know things. That I have instincts. That when I stop running from one thing to the next, there’s a quieter voice underneath all the noise that has been there all along, waiting to be heard.

What summer is actually for

We talk about summer like it’s for vacations and barbecues and getting more done before September. And it can be all of those things.

But I think summer is actually for remembering yourself.

The slower pace. The longer evenings. The permission to sit outside and do nothing productive for twenty minutes. These aren’t indulgences. They’re how you find your way back to what you actually think, what you actually want, what actually matters to you.

Most of us don’t lose ourselves all at once. It happens gradually, over years of saying yes when we meant no, of going quiet to keep the peace, of moving so fast we never stopped to ask what we needed.

Summer is a chance to reverse that, even a little.

One question for the solstice

On the solstice, the longest day of the year, I’m going to ask myself one question.

Not what do I need to accomplish this summer. Not how do I make the most of these months.

Just this:

What do I know right now that I’ve been too busy to listen to?

That’s it. That’s the whole question.

Because here’s what I’ve learned, after thirty years of sitting with women in the hardest moments of their lives:

You already know. You’ve known for a while. You just haven’t had enough quiet to hear it.

An invitation for this week

You don’t have to go to the coast. You don’t have to go anywhere.

This week, somewhere in the middle of the longest days of the year, find twenty minutes. Outside if you can. Phone down. Nothing to accomplish.

And ask yourself that question.

What do I know right now that I’ve been too busy to listen to?

Write it down if you want. Or just let it sit. Either way, you might be surprised what’s been waiting there.

I’d love to know what comes up for you. Hit reply and tell me.

With love from somewhere up the coast,

Jo