I keep the overhead light off year-round, but in June the house doesn't need my help. The light comes in long and low until past eight and lies across the floor like it's planning to stay.
The longest day was Saturday. I noticed it the way you notice a bill: aware it had arrived, vaguely sure I owed it something.
There's a feeling I get this time of year that I've never seen anyone else admit to, so I'll admit it. Too much daylight makes me anxious. Not the warmth, which I like. The sheer length of the evening, the way it sits there past dinner still bright and faintly expectant, as if all that light were a question I was supposed to have an answer ready for. Other people seem to know what the long evenings are for. They're out in them, doing things, while I'm indoors wondering whether I should be.
I tried, on the longest day, to use it. I took the walk the slow way, and the jacaranda was past its purple now, just a green tree again, the stained cars long since rained clean. I came home with a lemon I didn't need. And then there were still three hours of daylight left and I'd run out of things the day seemed to want.
In December I know exactly what to do with the dark. You light two lamps and put soup on and the evening closes around you with somewhere to be, which is here. The light does the work of telling you the day is done. In June nothing tells you. The day just keeps going, generous and shapeless, and I sit in it like a guest who can't tell when to leave.
I don't think I'm built for abundance. Give me a short day and I'll fill it. Give me the longest one of the year and I'll squander it standing at the window, watching the light take its time about leaving, feeling I've been handed something I haven't earned and can't quite spend.
It went dark, eventually, near nine. I felt better at once, which probably tells you everything, and I put the kettle on.