Conception.

I had a thought a while before my birthday, when I was driving: When was I conceived?

I calculated slowly and obtusely in my mind. Nine months before the middle of March is... the middle of June.

The middle of June? Right around the summer solstice?

I went home and looked up a pregnancy calendar just to be sure. I typed in March 14 as the due date and clicked the button. And guess what it said.

Conception date: June 21. The usual date of the summer solstice.

I'm going to try to describe to you what this means to me, even though I know it's strange. 

Yes, I was born 3 days early, so I probably wasn't actually conceived on the actual summer solstice. But. The idea of it is so perfect. I feel more like me when I think about it than I ever have before.

On the best day of the year, when the sun shines longer than it does any other day, I was born for the first time.

On a day that promises sunshine and warmth and adventure and joy, came the promise of my life, full of all the same things.

On the day when little girls wear crowns of flowers in their hair, God smiled down at my parents and said, "You're going to have a baby."

Like I was the crowning achievement of an already beautiful, exultant day.

And through a long summer and fall and winter, I grew and had my first education in being a human, there inside my mom. My heart learned to beat, and my lungs practiced breathing fluid in preparation for air.

And then, just before spring, I was born into the world, along with the flowers on the trees.

Can you see how realizing that would make all the difference?