Solar Return

On the eve of 58 and the pursuit of levity

Photo by Georg Krause on Unsplash

From where I type, the air is shifting. For the first time in months, the a/c is off and the windows are open. The light is in flux, too. It’s morphed from a bracing white yellow, like an office light fixture, to a softer, more muted amber with flecks of chartreuse.

The garden knows what’s up. Cucumbers on the trellis are at an inflection point, deliberating if they should stick around for a little longer or hit the road. As tomatillo lanterns cheer on their fruit to the finish line, tomato blossoms know it’s highly unlikely they’ll self actualize.

I don’t have a log book tracking the meteorological shifts of the third week of August. But this third week of the eighth month is the week I showed up fifty-eight years ago, the firstborn of three to a couple of kids just old enough to drink. So I know a little something about the light and the air and the vibe at this time of year.

It’s a transition time.

I have long thought of my birthday as my own personal New Year’s Day, a time to review and reflect and consider what’s next. Two years ago, I scribbled a 55 Things About 55 list.

I didn’t know then what I know now. That blood is biological but not necessarily familial. That you cannot make order out of other people’s chaos, only your own. That learning to love yourself, just like George Benson taught ten-year-old me, is the greatest of them all.

No matter what they take from me, they can’t take away my dignity.

In the early days of this year, I chose “levity” as my word for 2024 — a wish, a hope, a prayer, a talisman.

So far it’s been hard to come by. Even when I go upside down, my knees now coming off my elbows, inching closer to the ceiling. Even when I score big in Scrabble or turn on Funky Friday.

But it’s the third week of the eighth month, remember. Change is in the air. Did you catch last night’s roll call at the Democratic National Convention? Did you too boogie in the living room and download the playlist? That’s what I’m talking about.

I’m thinking of the little girl in the front yard posing for a photo to mark the first day of school. Knee highs pulled up and Red Delicious in my Snoopy lunch box. Ready to pull out my pencils and play hopscotch. Ready to soar.