I've found it useful, over the past several years, to pay more attention to the seasonal changes. Not just the gestalt of the season, but the specific timing of things, the changes in the sun angle and day length. Which of course means marking the equinoxes and solstices, the longest and shortest and middlest days. But also - and actually more informative to me - the days halfway between these. Around the solstices, the day length is changing very slowly - a week passes with little difference. Around the equinoxes, things are shifting fast, from one week to the next the change is palpable. And the tipping point on this curve is halfway between.
For example: halfway between the fall equinox and the winter solstice is Halloween. And on Halloween I'm often sitting out on the steps watching the evening progress, and dark is certainly coming before it's terribly late, but there's still an appreciable amount of evening - not like in December when you step outside at 4 pm into practically full dark. And it used to be that sometime in November the dark would catch me somehow off guard - how little daylight is there now? But these days, I'll sit outside on Halloween thinking "it's getting dark pretty early these days, huh" and then remind myself: you won't see this much light again til February. We're going into the long dark now. And it helps me, to be prepared for it. And it makes it feel more real and solid, on winter solstice, to say we're halfway through it - when I've been watching for it the whole time, and not still scrambling after being bowled over by the dark sometime in late November.
And then in February, on groundhogs day, you're at the halfway point again. After weeks of slow lengthening you're finally gaining daylight fast enough to notice. Regardless of what the winter weather is doing, light is coming back.
And then there's the equinox, and halfway after that is May Day - the start of the long days of summer. If you're watching for it, there's a sweeping change in growing things around this time - I don't have exactly the words for it, but everything is rising to meet summer.
And then there's summer solstice, when the sun gets so high that the shadows all change places and the days are so long it's almost too much. And it's even a relief, a week or two later, when the sun's dropped enough that things don't feel quite so seared.
And the long hot days drag on for a while. Long enough that it starts to feel a little antsy for change, like you've held your breath for too long. Like you're forgetting something, or running out of time, but you're not sure what for.
And then you're like oh: it's the first week of august. The other turning point day, the one with no modern name or tag-along holiday. And I don't know, but it feels fitting somehow. Like this restlessness is the space of an unmarked holiday. Like something I should know what to do with but I don't.
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