A Tale Of Midsummer’s Eve
Candle wax is spluttered across the darkly polished wooden tabletops. Ceramic vases with bright red poppies sit beside the small dancing flames, and warm fingers of light flicker against the dark rouge walls, cream-colored frames and yellowed, aged stills.
I stand alone behind the bar and reflect upon the dying of the light, situated beneath a chalkboard and with an espresso machine to my back, polishing wine glasses. While one or two tables in the small back room of the public house remain wholeheartedly occupied, the rest of the tables sit empty, quiet and satisfied, an evening at it’s end. The last beams of the warm day stretch enthusiastically through the small single-pane window, set low and deep into the concrete wall. The sunlight radiantly reflects across the tabletops, even as the hungry grey shadows of darkness begin to swallow up the sky.
The Summer Solstice is far more apparent an event the higher latitude one finds oneself positioned on the globe. Here, bright early mornings are followed by confident daylight that lasts long into the night. Though we are late to the bonfire and will have to leave early, the idea is to watch the sun set in the west and wait for it to rise again in the east. As the Earth rotates into a deeper evening, the tide draws out and changes the acoustics of the shore. The light off the glassy surface of the water mirrors the light of the moon and the sun as they withdraw and encroach the waters, according to our own planet’s shadow. Thusly we observe our presence in its motion: the Milky Way splashed luminously before us, passing through an isosceles triangle that stands crooked on one tip, the innumerable spread of stars unknown yet ever around us. As the three shimmering lights of Pegasus dance over the reverence of the sea, we the dancing shadows of the sand stand before our own circle of fire.
In celebration we brought all of our drumming regalia, which noisemakers were distributed immediately through the excited hands of the children. “Somebody sing us a song!” they recite, both together and separate, running and dancing and sitting around the fire, “Somebody sing!” So with my shoes off and settled in the sand, to the warm glow of the flames, with the occasional rattle of the shaker, a song becomes its own. The aged mandolin makes its debut in new hands, life reincarnate; the abstract is pulled back into focus, a twang releases from the strings and the sound becomes sweet.
A small child sits with the bodhrán on his lap in the sand, his tiny feet sticking perfectly out the other side, toes wiggling to the rhythm. His sister perches on the cajón, toes clenched in concentration, feet situated several inches above the ground, legs clutching to the sides of the box. She rests her weight on one hand and drums with the other. A few children bravely sing, while the others clack and rattle along obediently.
Eventually the children leave the excitement of the fire in favor of the gentler call of dreams. Their tent is settled into the coastline and has a string of fairy lights draped across the entrance, mystic and playful in the night. Ours is just one fire upon the shore, and the dancing light of other fires call out to us, challenging us to last the night, solemn to the approaching dawn.
We leave our friends their fire for the warmth of our hearth, the steady sound of the waves echoing in our ears.