Good afternoon to you, people. And good afternoon. And good afternoon.

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. You will punch out of work, make the long drive home, have supper, put the kids to bed, and pour your first drink of the evening. You will sit on the deck, put your feet up on the railing and realize for the first time that the sun is still casting light on your day like a ghost that does not want to leave you.

The sky will still be a faint blue or a darkening purple by the time you draw the first yawn of the evening. It will occur to you that daylight is going to outlast you this night, and you might marvel on this a bit before the second yawn comes along and then you’re done for the evening.

If you put aside Halloween, the summer solstice is my very favorite time of the year. I love that the Earth is tilted at such a precise angle that it has a hard time shedding the light of the sun. There is something so cosmically beautiful about the longest day of the year that primitive people constructed monuments to mark the occasion. The ancient ones, who possessed wisdom that may have been lost to us over millennia, celebrated the solstice in ways we now consider bizarre, or at best, quaint. They knew that the extra seconds of sunlight meant that we were extra blessed and they found ways to profess thanks for the gift.

I live close to downtown Lewiston. Any thoughts I might have about building a monument to the solstice would be quickly shot down by the Planning Board and I’d be billed just for filling out the paperwork. Any ideas about dancing naked around a bonfire would be quelled by the indecency laws and the current burning ban. Not to mention the embarrassing injuries I’d suffer.

And so, I celebrate the solstice in other ways. I wrote a book about it, for starters. It would be gross exploitation for me to plug my book here, and my editors would frown on it. Just go to your local bookstore or library and ask for it. I believe they keep copies of the book in the pink room.

But the idea is to celebrate this long day in your own special way. Pitch a tent in the back yard and invite your spouse to spend the night there with you. Let your kids stay up extra late and watch them catch fireflies while the light hangs and hangs and hangs in the sky. Call that brother you’ve been ignoring for six years because of that dispute over the inheritance and say something like: “You know, bro? On any given day of the year, I’d rather eat lint than give you a call. But this day is so long, I thought I’d look you up and ask how your life is.”

You’re laughing at me, aren’t you? You think I spent my solstice drinking red wine that goes nicely with poultry but better with melancholy. But the fact is, few times of the year affect me so profoundly as the solstice. I want to roll around in the grass, watch the sky and savor its tenacious appetite for light. I want to jump into Lake Auburn and thrash around under the moon, even though doing so will result in a $1,000 fine, as clearly stated on signs posted every 10 feet along that gorgeous stretch of lake. I want to pay the fine in dripping dollars to the scowling cop who waits upon the shore.

Because darkness comes back soon enough. The returning darkness of the planet is as inevitable as the darkness of the human soul. No fewer crimes against man will be committed on June 21. No fewer people will die on this date from diseases they didn’t invite. It’s a special day only for those who pause to consider it.

The hard thing is that it happens but once a year. The light hangs there, and hangs there, and hangs there in the sky. Then it’s dark again, night has fallen, the steady decline of daylight hours carries on. You awake the day after your solstice reverie and there will be some shrill-speaking crone nearby to herald the hideous news: “Well, that’s it, you know! From this point on, the days get shorter and before you know it, winter will be back! Better start thinking about getting snow tires for your car and you just know the cost of heating oil is only going to go up.”

Run that crone over with your car and call it part of your solstice ritual. As long as you celebrate in one form or another. Because to overlook the joy of the day would be an insult. It would be an insult to me and to the planet that tilted so precisely toward the sun to make it happen.

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.