The longest days of the year are here — what are you doing with them

It was not that long ago. I have the photo to prove it — me in the backyard with a shovel and a grimace and a block of ice the size of a small appliance, doing battle with what I can only describe as the Jersey iceberg. The yard was buried. The sky was gray. The whole state was frozen and February felt like it was going to last until April.

That was just a few months ago. Now look at us.

The sun came up this morning at 5:28. It will go down tonight at 8:29. That is nearly 15 hours of daylight — the most we get all year. The summer solstice is twelve days away, June 20, and right now we are sitting at the very top of the light. After that it starts going the other way. Not fast at first. A minute here, a minute there. But it goes.

I say the same thing every year at this point in June. It is going to be a great summer. And I mean it every time. This year more than most.

We have more summer than usual and it is already taking shape

Memorial Day came early this year and Labor Day falls late, which means the official summer window is longer than average. We are not going to waste a single day of it if I have anything to say about it.

This past weekend Linda and I were at the cabin in the Endless Mountains in Sullivan County PA that we share with our family. Saturday night around nine o'clock I walked out onto the road near the cabin and the sun was still painting the sky pink and orange over the valley, mist rising from the hills, not a sound except whatever was moving in the field beside me. Nine o'clock. Still light. That is what these weeks are.

SEE ALSO: Strathmere NJ: The best free beach day on the Jersey Shore 

This weekend we are taking our first day trip to Strathmere. The free beach, the quiet, the feeling that the rest of the Shore forgot it existed and left it exactly right. After that the summer fills in fast — Wildwood Crest, Cape May, the cabin again for a full week next month. The season is already taking shape and we are barely into June. You can't beat a Jersey sunrise from the beach and boardwalk!

But the part of summer I want to talk about — the part most people sleep through literally — is the early morning.

The 5:30am case

If you have never in your life gone outside at 5:30 in the morning during the first weeks of June, I want to make the case for it right now.

Rush hour has not started. The school buses are not on the road. The leaf blowers are not running. The traffic is not building. The whole world is quiet in a way it simply is not at any other hour of a summer day.

The loudest thing you will hear at 5:30am is the birds. They start before the light is fully up — the robins first, then the catbirds, then whatever is moving in the boxwood at the edge of the yard. If you walk near any water, any marsh, any edge habitat, the sound is extraordinary. It does not cost anything. It does not require equipment or a reservation or a badge. It just requires getting up.

The wildlife you see at that hour is different from what you see during the day. Deer in the fields. Fox cutting across a parking lot on the way home. Herons working the shallows. Up north, maybe a bear. The whole natural world is going about its morning before the human world wakes up and crowds it out. A walker or a runner or a cyclist at 5:30am is mostly alone out there and the solitude is not lonely — it is clarifying.

And the light. The early summer sunrise light is something photographers chase and painters have tried to capture for centuries. Low angle, warm, the whole landscape lit from the side. It lasts maybe forty minutes and then the day takes over. If you have never been outside for it you have been missing one of the better free things New Jersey offers.

SEE ALSO: Jersey summer is 105 days — the longest it can ever be 

The bittersweet part

Here is the thing about the longest days that I cannot entirely set aside. The solstice is the peak and it is also the turn. After June 20 the days get shorter. Not noticeably at first — we will still be getting beautiful long evenings well into August. But the direction changes. The 4:30pm sunsets of November are not as far away as they feel right now in the glow of a 9pm sky.

I am not saying this to be gloomy. I am saying it because it is the reason to go outside at 5:30am right now instead of next month. Because the window is open and it does not stay open. The summer will go by fast — it always does — and the light will go with it.

We just came back from the Endless Mountains where the sky was still light at nine o'clock on a Saturday night and I stood on a dirt road in a field and just looked at it. Not taking a picture. Not checking my phone. Just looking at it. (Then I took the photo!)

That is the assignment for the next twelve days before the solstice tips the balance. Go outside early. Stay outside late. Find the light wherever it is and stand in it for a minute before it moves on.

It is going to be a great summer. Live it!