Summer night

Tonight is the shortest night of the year.

And summer nights here are really short.

It is probably what I love the most about danish summer: the time of year when the sun goes down after 10 o'clock at night and dawn starts around 3.3o in the morning.

I remember walking home from parties in my youth, and realizing that dawn was here, just walking through sleepy neighbourhoods at 4 in the morning, listening to the birds coming alive.

Just the other morning, I woke up at 3.55 to pale daylight. I went back to sleep with a smile, knowing from the quality of the light that I would wake up to a sunny day at 6.30.

I wish it was like this all year.

Because, you see, the marvellous danish summer nights come with a price. The one you pay in december, when you leave for work in pitch black night a bit before 8 in the morning, and drive home in the sunset at 4 in the afternoon. Where you have to focus on each minute of extra daylight, and light candles everywhere to survive.

For 2 or 3 months you think that the bright summer evenings will never come back. But eventually, they do.

I wish I could stop time right here, and that every night was a summer night.

I just have to enjoy summer immensely while it is here...