Equal

from skyatnight magazine

Tradition, such as it is, often finds the Thursday night bicycle ride heading to that favored bluff above the railroad tracks alongside Puget Sound north of Elliot Bay on dates closest to the astronomical change of seasons.  

On the longest, shortest, and most equal days of the year, it’s not unusual for the usual group of miscreants to risk collarbones and front teeth on a path through the woods in order to congregate around what’s undoubtedly among the best of officially-sanctioned firepits in our fair city, so as to drink from aluminum cans, man- (and sometimes woman)-splain each other on topics of shared interest, and, sooner or later, pass judgment on the inevitable fire-fucking that inevitably fucks with the fire, no matter what.

Never before, though, has this relatively common occurrence included an impromptu concert by  couple of amateur musicians on what are officially known as melodicas, but which all agreed are better known by the more generic term “mouth organs” (although there was that time our old friend set up a computerized karaoke machine with Bluetooth speakers so the assembled could croon along to Livin’ on a Prayer in the moonlight), which just goes to show that the appropriate balance of the new with the old emerges pretty naturally when night and day are almost perfectly equivalent at this time of year.

For the next three months or so, every nighttime grows longer; ain’t nothing we can do about that, so it seems appropriate to find that ideal fulcrum on which to teeter-totter one more time before descent into the darkness.

Another new parking lot, an unprecedented (and markedly superior—albeit superfluously vertical) route to the bridge combined with the tried-and-true provisioning stop and those hamburgers that go way back: the new and the old meeting in the middle just as light and darkness embrace as equals twice a year.

And an early departure, balancing innovation and familiarity, too much and not enough, ideally once more.