Long summer evenings

Instead of  being dusk, six o'clock had the look of mid-afternoon in these fabulously long days of early northern summer when it stayed light until eleven. Staying out as the day pushed toward midnight was like playing hooky from the regular rules of clocks.

Carol Anshaw, Carry the One (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2012), p. 102. (This scene is in Amsterdam.)

Shorter days—winter's coming!

In late June, when summer hasn't even kicked in and already the days are getting shorter, I am seized by a kind of epic desperation. On these days I am reminded of doing drugs, and reach instead for my decanter of coffee brandy. I am reminded of when, after doing drugs on a semi-regular basis, your terror of the come-down creeps closer and closer to the apex of your druggy glory, until the moment when you're nearing your happiest is also the moment most tinged with terror and apprehension because you're about to begin the long descent.

Heidi Julavits, "Maine," in Matt Weiland & Sean Wilsey eds., State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America (New York: HarperCollins, 2008)