The longest day and how right-handed can you be

The birds woke my up just after 5 a.m. this morning and it was already light. It's now 8:39 p.m. and dusk is beginning to gather. That's 15 and a half hours of light--the longest day of the year, God bless it.

I'd like to live somewhere where 15 hours of light was the norm, though there is no place like that. I wouldn't want to live further north--I have no longing for the midnight sun. But I like the longest day of the year a lot.

When I was young, I thought being left-handed was cool. I wanted to be left-handed. I tried to write left-handed (a disaster!) I tried to throw a ball left-handed (a deeper disaster!) I tried to eat left-handed and nearly starved.  I tried every way I could to use my left hand to do things (a total disaster!!!)

Now that I am old, I still think left-handed people are cool. As hard as life is for them (find a left-handed tool, for example) I admire and envy them.

And I'm the most right-handed person on the planet. I hurt my right wrist last week and I'm useless from opening a door or opening a jar to simply making my way through life without seeming to be helpless.

Longest day and most 'right-handed' don't seem to go together, but for me they do.

All those (well, not that many) graceful, adroit left-handed people still cause me to envy them. And I'm pained to know, here at 8:58 p.m. when darkness has fallen, that I'll have to wait a year for the Summer Solistice, the 'longest day' to come 'round again.

When my right wrist is better, I won't mind so much.....