June

Low tide by the Hayward-San Mateo Bridge

June is my favorite month. In distant days June marked the successful completion of another school year and the start of vacation, when the living is easy. The air is warm but not stifling; the tree and grass pollens subside, bringing relief to allergy sufferers.

June is the month of reunions and weddings, of happy endings and the beginning of summer jobs, summer camp, and summer school, finite adventures with no commitment, the best kind. One June, years ago, we sold a house and bought another. We cleaned up, moved on and settled in.

In late June three of my favorite people have birthdays, and this year I’ll be on vacation, celebrating with them.

Because we don't know when we will die,
we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well.
Yet everything happens only
a certain number of times,
and a very small number really.
How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood,
some afternoon that's so deeply a part of your being that you can't even conceive
of your life without it.
Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that.
How many more times will you watch the full moon rise?
Perhaps twenty. And yet it all seems limitless.
- The Sheltering Sky