a pre solstice reflection

Story

I was reading about solstice, since that is almost upon us - shortest day, pendulum swinging, earth tilt, position in orbit around the sun, and all that... despite our large snow pile yesterday, our seasons are relatively meek affairs.

One of our sister planets has a quite different solstice cycle. Tilted at around 90 degrees, one hemisphere enjoys constant daylight, while the other remains in the dark. As the sphere winds its way around its orbit, that changes, and at equinox both hemispheres experience a parallel night and day cycle - then solstice rolls around again and the tables are turned.

The orbit takes 84 years to repeat. I reflect on that.

With our scales of reference so small and comfortable, we cannot imagine such generational timelines for a change of seasons... and yet many creatures here may understand this better than us - a female mayfly lives only for minutes.