daylight lasted longer

Tuesday afternoon I was walking on a sidewalk in Sherman Heights and stopped by a small patch of flowers growing through a fence to play a while with a monarch buttterfly. It would look at me – maybe warily, maybe gratefully – and fly away over the fence, and come right back. Flying close by my face, back onto the flowers. Surely living life.

When I get to have these give-and-takes with creatures in the daylight, it feels like dancing. Most often the dance which comes to mind is The Watusi. But this wasn’t that. This was way more The Peppermint Twist. Which, the act of playing with a butterfly on the sidewalk lots like a kid prize, may be more of an East Coast thing – The Peppermint Twist.

Last night, during a Zoom time on the longest day of the year, I looked out the window and saw it was getting dark at 8:20. When I was a kid the daylight lasted longer, often ’til 10. Who knows? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe it’s the nowadays daylight. Maybe something to do with latitude and longitude – one coast and another.

Dancing with a butterfly, however, still feels the same.