02 June 2013

June

No matter where I am in the world or what I am up to, June feels special.

In Altadena as I was growing up it was the foggy month, June doom & gloom… a fairly dismal-sounding name, but considering that the valley sits in unceasing sunshine for 11 months out of the year, fog begins to feel like a pretty rare privilege. To top off the great weather, June marked the end of the school year and the beginning of summer, a launching-off point to new adventures with the exciting prospect of leveling-up academically (and in seniority) in September.

During university, June was valuable for precisely the opposite reason. In Scotland the winter is biting, days are short, and sunlight is sparse. As the days finally began to get longer in April and May, the S.A.D. that had crept in unnoticed over the course of the winter would dissipate in an instant. The sense of exhilarated freedom I felt each June with the completion of my last exam remains unrivaled: June brought with it warmth (well, relative warmth), beautiful bright sunlight for 19 hours a day, the longest & most beautiful sunsets I’ve ever seen, and, most exciting for me, the opportunity to travel independently and on my own finances for the first time in my life.

Last year in June I had just been invited to stay on in Costa Rica in a new job; I moved down from where I’d been living & working up in the mountains, and landed in the midst of a buzzing surfer beach town that was quite frankly a little bit overwhelming for someone whose social skills had substantially dwindled from disuse. It was scary and it required a whole different dialect of Costa Rican ‘pachuco’ Spanish than what I’d been speaking up in the mountains, and I loved every second of the challenge.

This year, I’ve managed to find myself yet again in a new part of the world. Of all the places I’ve lived, this is closest to my hometown of Altadena, but Fresno is a completely different world. A basin of agriculture, Fresno has met June in great style with Farmer’s Markets galore, and pretty much some of the greatest produce I have ever tasted (hello, pluots. I know this is early in our relationship, but I feel like I’ve known you forever. This might be love.).

Looking ahead, it looks like I will be in yet another city a year from now, with a whole new kind of June to try on, and wonderful people to share that with. I’m pretty psyched.

In short… happy June!