The Midsummer Solstice has come and gone here in the Northern Hemisphere, early this past Sunday morning, and with it, the longest day. The sun reached its most northerly point –– a trick of our old Earth’s tilt on its axis. It appeared to stand still for a day or two at that point and now, as the days have passed since the solstice, things begin to shift the other way. Today, this 23rd of June, will bring 3 fewer minutes of sunlight to our town than the day before. This is the constant shift back and forth, the constant rearrange.
On Sunday afternoon, after one night and two days of making floral crowns to celebrate the solstice with folks this past weekend at Convivio Bookworks in Lake Worth, Seth and I closed up shop, cleaned the place up a bit, then got in the car and headed south to my old family home where we mowed the lawn beneath threatening skies and then ate the dinner my sister prepared, and a homemade lemon meringue pie. After dinner, we went to the TV and watched the 1999 Michael Hoffman film version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was very sweet and my mother’s first bit of Shakespeare (an amazing feat for someone who will turn 100 in October). I provided a few explanations at key moments to help keep her engaged and following along. It was my sister’s first bit of Shakespeare, too. They laughed at the funny parts and seemed to enjoy the movie. When it was done, Mom said, “That was different.” I’ll take that to mean she liked it ok.
It is one of my favorite movies; another of the movies I watch each year to mark the seasons. I make Seth watch it with me each St. John’s Eve or thereabouts, for this is where in the year Shakespeare set his play, and this year, I’m glad the family got to watch, too. I found it, as usual, warm and funny and mesmerizing and, this year, sitting next to Mom as the story unfolded, more touching than usual. I love these moments together.
And so the setting sun tonight will bring St. John’s Eve, and tomorrow, St. John’s Day. In the Round of the Year, we are at the polar opposite spoke from Christmas and Yuletide. And just as those celebrations follow the Midwinter Solstice by a few days, so happens here, too. The early Church placed the celebration of St. John the Baptist’s birth at Midsummer and the celebration of Christ’s birth at Midwinter. The metaphorical reasoning is powerful: St. John brings shortening days each year, and John himself tells us something to the effect of, “I must decrease so he may increase.” John prepares the way for Jesus. Six months later, we reach the opposite spoke in our wheel, and there we celebrate the birth of Christ, at the time of our darkest days, our longest nights… just as sunlight begins again its increase.
These are my favorite days and nights of summer. The season is long when you live in a place like the strange green land I call home: consistently hot and humid this time of year. The days, this past week, have been in the lower 90s, the nights, in the mid 80s. We typically have daily afternoon thunderstorms this time of year, but they’ve been inconsistent, and without them, the air does not cool down. We don’t get the extremes here that other places do: it’s extremely rare that we hit 100 degrees F. It is, however, the constant sameness that wears us down: the knowledge that it will never get below the upper 70s, even in the dead of night, not until October at best. But there is some magic to be found in a Florida summer, and this is the time we most seek it, and when we are often blessed to find it.
SHOP HAPPENINGS
We have a couple of new workshops that will soon be added to the WORKSHOPS page of our website. Not there yet, but will be in the next day or two, hopefully. The first is a new Convivio Cookery workshop: Ricotta Gnocchi, set for Sunday August 15, 2026. (That’s my Grandma Assunta’s birthday and she would love that we are teaching you how to make homemade pasta that day!) The second one is a writing workshop: “True Stories Cleverly Told” with writer and literary agent Cricket Freeman, on Saturday September 19. We’ll be exploring creative nonfiction for narrative and memoir in this full-day class that will include a box lunch. I’m looking forward to both workshops: teaching in the first and learning in the second!
Image: Even Pinocchio got a floral crown this past weekend at our Midsummer Solstice Market! Our niece Isabella fashioned one for him.
