Yesterday was the solstice, the longest day in terms of daylight in the year. It also began as one of the hottest days of the year, with cloying humidity followed by afternoon storm winds that foretold the imminent arrival of thundery fireworks and a cold front. Somehow, we escaped the storms, though the skies blackened ominously twice, and a large branch came tumbling down in the wind, taking out our phone line yet again.

When evening came around, the skies were clear; a brisk, cool, fresh breeze had blown in from the northwest, and I decided to go to the lake and sit and witness the sun going down over the opposite shore. I went right around the edge of the bay, past the beach where adults sat at picnic tables while children played in the sand and ran in the shallow water. Leaving them behind, I climbed up through the pine forest and found a favourite rocky outcrop; a small, steep granite cliff that juts out over the water, peppered with cedars and moss and a few determined daisies. 

I went all alone, and it seemed right.

The sun and sky did not put on a spectacular, flamboyant show, but the sight of that golden ball dropping first languidly and then with amazing speed, behind the treeline, was mesmerizing. The wind was playing relentlessly with the lake, ruffling it this way and that, and for a while, the low sun traced a shimmering path on the waves. 

As the sun dropped into the trees on the opposite shore, there was a brief illusion that the treetops were actually on fire. At times, I closed my eyes because the light was so bright. At one such time, I sensed the disappearance of the light not visually, but in a tactile way, as the warmth of it left my face.

Below my feet, the lake stretched out for kilometres in every direction. Though I was aware that people were about, such as those I'd passed on the beach in the hidden bay behind my right shoulder, the expanse below me was devoid of any human activity, and full of an incredible sense of peace.  The setting sun cast its last coda of colour on the puffs of clouds above the treeline, gilding them in a beautiful encore. And then darkness came in like a curtain. The show was over, and it was time to go home.