Making the slow turn

These photos were taken in Stanley Park in New Edinburgh two months apart -- not from the same exact angle, but they do give you some idea of the rather frighteningly dramatic change Hades makes, usually in a couple of weeks. On May 4th, winter had barely departed and the grass and trees dared to become green. It's as if summer comes in a rush, fearful that winter will come back.

Sometimes it does.

But now June is coming to an end. Securely summer. I sat with my family in Zak's Diner in the Byward Market yesterday, watching the crowds stream by: several generations of families in jeans and teeshirts, in to catch the Canada Day kerfuffle up on Parliament Hill this Monday; flocks of young women in bright mini-dresses and impossible heels, en route to the scores of wedding receptions in the city. Elder daughter told of an uncomfortable bus ride cornered by a school-mate from her elementary days, who loudly described her intentions of staying drunk until July 1st (having started on June 28th) and claimed I had dressed her down on the street for smoking. Elder daughter managed to remark that this sounded a bit out of character for me, but doubted this had much impact. Shaking our heads in bewilderment, we held up and swayed imaginary lighters while an old Aerosmith ditty played on the jukebox, startling our waitress. Younger daughter revelled in the thought of no more school until September and ate with more appetite than she has had for months.

I've never cared much for the first six months of the year, despite many happy things occurring during that time: the births of my daughters, meeting the Resident Fan Boy and marrying him two years later. However, June is ending and I can feel the ship that is the ongoing year making the slow pivot through summer to change direction in the autumn and steam back to Christmas. This is the part of the voyage I prefer.

(June 2013 has been my eleventh NaBloPoMo, a project that started with February 2009 and has continued two or three months a year. My twelfth NaBloPoMo will be December 2013, at which time I will have done all twelve months. There will be some posts between now and then -- just not every day. Thank goodness.)