I've welcomed the arrival of June with great fanfare since my youth in the 1970s. Back then, it marked the end of the school year and meant rounding up seventeen kids in the neighborhood for a game of baseball. These days, it's more about gathering colleagues after work and heading to a rooftop for beers and a ballgame.
The June sun is a lot like December’s snowflakes. Both hold a kind of freshness...
I cherish the sun and the flowers, the grass and the leaves that June brings before the weight of summer's heat begins to bear down. June is like a new love that is full of carnival spirit, strange and thrilling. I think of both sides now...
... moons and Junes and Ferris wheels. June always manages to slip a bit of fairy tale into our lives. Just like Joni Mitchell said.
I think about how June begins with a gentle rhythm. Lemonade tastes better. The backyard still offers some shade. Shorts and skirts still feel a little foreign, and swimsuits carry the kind of awkwardness we quickly learn to shed.
Today’s quote is from Scotty Fitz. He wasn’t just marking the move from May to June, he was capturing a larger truth.
May is youth. It’s naive and light. June, though, is the turning point. It carries a sense of responsibility, but Fitz still sprinkles it with magic by calling it a “fairy night.” Lightning bugs in the park, blinking to life, stir that same whimsical spirit every year.
Turning the calendar page is a reminder that life moves fast and sometimes it shifts direction before we even notice.
By June 1st, we are already sixty games into the baseball season. The sun on a June diamond burns brighter. The outfield grass looks greener. The bleachers haven’t yet soaked up that stale beer smell. There are over fifteen hours of daylight to work with. Long lines at the ice cream truck. Lawn chairs, transistor radios, picnic tables, and potato salad. Sprinklers and fruit punch. Watermelon seed fights and clipping a useless baseball card to your bike fork.
These are June’s gifts, gifts that May cannot deliver.
For me, no June is complete without sitting in a cool spot, listening to Rhapsody in Blue with someone that I love. Breathe it in and feel every ounce of June with all the gusto that you can take and all the passion that you can give.
Take a walk at five in the morning and greet a June sunrise. Hop on your bike after supper and chase a June sunset. Tell someone that you love them, so June can amplify through their heart.
The Morning Chalkboard shows the sun smiling today with a gorgeous number standing next to it. So let this first Monday of June know you are here...
... and don’t forget the magic this sixth month can bring.
