The light is going, night soon. And it’s only mid-afternoon.
Used to be that (using satellite images) I watched the progress of the the edge of night as it crossed the earth daily, and as it shifted seasonally from the northern hemisphere to the southern. I would relish the regret of watching it move south away from me, and anticipate with great anxiety its return. 
I have never been a summer boy. Perhaps, before my memory began to save everything, I might have had blond hair that glistened in the sunlight. I have never tanned very well, though I do remember once long ago getting a nice reddish color—not a burn—from being in the sun for a week riding my bicycle to Cape Cod. And as everyone who ages knows, I too once sported beautiful youth as a garment which I wore without appreciation or gratitude, which is as it should be worn when one is young.
Summer is a time of discontent for me. Of attraction to forbidden fruits (no pun intended). I have some idea why some religions require burkas—only in my world, it would be the young men wearing them.
Beautiful young men; I remember one in Falmouth, working on a boat. I was yonger than he, but only slightly so. I was visiting there one summer with my parents almost 40 years ago. And he still haunts me.
He was a bit annoyed by what must have been my obvious interest in him. And that made us different. I was never cognizant of what joy there may be in life, and hence not aware of many obvious things, like the fact that my staring would be noticed. I observed life. I was not a participant in life, but a peeping tom. I imagined in awe what his life was like, as he clambered about his tasks ten feet above us on the deck of that substantial yacht. It never occurred to me that I too had a life, that I could be me just like he could be him.
I never wanted to be me.
And so I still remember the curly blonde-haired boy on the boat, 40 years on. And I dread them every summer. And I dread the succulently gorgeous sunsets late in the evening, and the bright shining joy of the days, and the energy and vitality that seems to seep out of every dormant thing. quenching the winter’s dry spongy substance, and dripping all over the place in extravagant abundance. It scares me. More than that, it hurts.
I also remember, from forty-plus years ago, the neighbor who died of cancer, which began in his jaw; they removed most of his lower jaw, and all he could eat—or drink, rather—were frappes from the local drug store soda fountain. I loved frappes, and I failed to imagine what not being able to chew a piece of roast beef must be like. Now I know, sort of. Summer comes, and all around me the meat falls from the bone, but I have no jaw.
So I like the winter, when there are more people depressed (and I don’t feel so alone); or maybe its just that in winter I am depressed (and I don’t feel so …much); and luscious beauty is more difficult to discern beneath the warming layers, and the streets in the resorts are all quiet.
There is peace in lack of opportunity.