SLANTWISE
Things are changing here in E________. I knew they would, but it is just happening so much sooner than I would have expected. I had prepared myself for the dark, had done my research into just how very short my days would become eventually, how few the hours in the presence of the sun would be, but I hadn't calculated for this.
I had not realized that, even now, the noon-time sun would barely peek out above the tops of the tenement buildings all around me, would be almost entirely obscured when looked for up even the slightest incline. I had not figured on residing, even at the height of the day, in a nearly perpetual early morning light, in a day not yet begun, in short, at eight A.M.
It is slightly disconcerting to live at eight A.M. for hours on end, even on the clearest, brightest of days, especially now as it is two in the afternoon on a gloriously clear October day. The day couldn't be lovelier, but even now, with my post-lunch pint in hand, it can't have begun. It must, surely, still be eight in the morning, otherwise deceptively late. Perhaps there were a few dropped, somehow missed, hours this afternoon.
I know, cerebrally, that the sun still is moving slowly from east to west, low in the southern sky; even my nascent understanding of the urban geography here in E________ confirms this, but somehow I cannot but believe that the sun is still low, waiting to rise yet higher, at some point, across the sky, eventually shining overhead in this miraculously cloudless sky. Of course it will; it must on a day like this, but no, it remains eight A.M. even now as I check my grandfather's pocket watch and confirm that time continues to go by and my eventual early evening approaches.
It is not so much that I am particularly bothered by this condition of the sun, its position being so low in the sky. It just makes an already unstructured day all the more confusing. I have become accustomed to living by those regular movements of the sun above: the sun is low so I should probably mow the lawn; the sun looks mighty bright, perhaps it's a good time to hide in the studio; sun's going down, I should probably be hungry or something. You know, those basic animal instincts, or at least those of a highly domesticated creature such as I. These, though, at least for the time being, seem to have gone haywire; I forget to eat, or leave the studio, all kinds of things, at least until I receive a clear astronomical sign – that would be the eventual dark, which comes sooner with each passing day.
I know I oughtn't complain; soon the clocks tick back an hour and the darkness will fall at unheard of times of the day, but for the moment it is this lack of rise to the sunrise that I find so confounding, this perpetual slantwise that the sun seems set on providing.
I had not realized that, even now, the noon-time sun would barely peek out above the tops of the tenement buildings all around me, would be almost entirely obscured when looked for up even the slightest incline. I had not figured on residing, even at the height of the day, in a nearly perpetual early morning light, in a day not yet begun, in short, at eight A.M.
It is slightly disconcerting to live at eight A.M. for hours on end, even on the clearest, brightest of days, especially now as it is two in the afternoon on a gloriously clear October day. The day couldn't be lovelier, but even now, with my post-lunch pint in hand, it can't have begun. It must, surely, still be eight in the morning, otherwise deceptively late. Perhaps there were a few dropped, somehow missed, hours this afternoon.
I know, cerebrally, that the sun still is moving slowly from east to west, low in the southern sky; even my nascent understanding of the urban geography here in E________ confirms this, but somehow I cannot but believe that the sun is still low, waiting to rise yet higher, at some point, across the sky, eventually shining overhead in this miraculously cloudless sky. Of course it will; it must on a day like this, but no, it remains eight A.M. even now as I check my grandfather's pocket watch and confirm that time continues to go by and my eventual early evening approaches.
It is not so much that I am particularly bothered by this condition of the sun, its position being so low in the sky. It just makes an already unstructured day all the more confusing. I have become accustomed to living by those regular movements of the sun above: the sun is low so I should probably mow the lawn; the sun looks mighty bright, perhaps it's a good time to hide in the studio; sun's going down, I should probably be hungry or something. You know, those basic animal instincts, or at least those of a highly domesticated creature such as I. These, though, at least for the time being, seem to have gone haywire; I forget to eat, or leave the studio, all kinds of things, at least until I receive a clear astronomical sign – that would be the eventual dark, which comes sooner with each passing day.
I know I oughtn't complain; soon the clocks tick back an hour and the darkness will fall at unheard of times of the day, but for the moment it is this lack of rise to the sunrise that I find so confounding, this perpetual slantwise that the sun seems set on providing.
1 Comments:
Yep, you've put your finger on it. Of course it's not this bad down here. But it will be dark at 5 p.m. today. It took me until yesterday to realize that the palpable dwindling of the light probably has something to do with my having felt a little funky and off this week.
I have pictures from mid-November in London, twelve years ago, where you'd swear it's 4:30 p.m. But it's actually noon. And at 4:30, it was totally dark.
When I lived in E_____ several summers ago, my body didn't know what to do because it was cold--like, 10˚ C--in the middle of July but also light all the time. I was never awake when the sky wasn't still light. And so it felt as though I should be out in the sun, but it also felt as though I should be cocooning for winter.
We should Chronicle the Dark.
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