On darkness, dawn & dusk
I’ve mentioned it before, I realize, but I never really talked at length about what it’s like living up here during the winter. I can make this a very short post and summarize it with this: IT BLOWS. Or I can elaborate and tell you a few of the details.
As you can see from the widget above, currently it is 10:00 and the sun isn’t even up yet. It doesn’t officially rise until 10:51. It’s still pretty dark outside actually. And it will stay this way until just about noon. You see, the sun doesn’t actually “rise” like it does everywhere else in the world (except for places like Sweden, Norway etc). It comes above the horizon about 4-5˚and then goes back down into hiding again for another 21 hours.
That leaves us with perpetual dusk or dawn depending on how you look at it. The sun never gets higher than just right above the horizon so all day (all 3 hours that the sun is “up”) it actually looks like it’s either just rising or just setting—that kind of dusk like fading gray light you get everywhere else in the country.
The bright side to this is I get to see the sun rise AND set everyday during the winter. Take THAT lower 48! Sometimes, when it’s not snowing or overcast like it has been for the last five days, the sunsets are beautiful and last for over an hour. The clouds span the entire sky and turn brilliantly bright shades of orange and pink.
In addition to that, it’s easy to get a lot accomplished before the sun comes up, that is, if you are capable of getting out of bed while it’s still dark out, running errands in the dark and doing pretty much anything else in the dark. I have better days when I’m able to do this. Sometimes I’m up and out the door before the sun even “rises.” Today is not one of those days.
I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. It’s just too hard and too different. I supplement these hard times by sitting next to a Happy Light. And the best news is, the shortest day of the year is quickly approaching (Dec 21), and after that we start getting a whole SEVEN minutes more of daylight per day.
And then, come April through August, the sun never sets and we get to play tennis and run marathons at midnight.
Again, living up here isn’t always easy, but it’s an adventure—one that will be fun to talk about when we’re back living in “America.”
![I’m always seeing these beautiful credenzas on design blogs that were oh “just another ebay find.” That’s all well and good for them however, when I do a search I find beautiful pieces that a) I can’t afford [right now] and b) that don’t ever ever offer delivery to Alaska.
A credenza is another coveted item that I finally have the space for, so hopefully one of these days I’ll get lucky…via](http://18.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_kupko785Ea1qzsyl4o1_500.jpg)
