Daylight

Another question I get asked a lot is about the amount of sun (and lack thereof). Right now the days are pretty short. And this summer, especially those first few weeks of August, the days were super long. Needless to say, my internal clock is pretty much useless.

When I first arrived in August, it was really hard to go to bed at night, because it was still so bright out. In fact, I didn't actually see the town in darkness for close to a week, when I got up in the middle of the night and found that it actually did get dark!

 10:15 pm on Aug. 7

Then for a while the days were pretty "normal" length, or normal for winter down-states. But for a couple months now I've walked to school in the dark and walked home in dusk.

The weather app on my phone shows sunrise and sunset. On the solstice, they just barely fit on the same screen! (11:24 and 4:36)

When school is going, I have to get up early anyway, so it's not too strange to wake up in the dark. But over the break, when I didn't have to get up for anything, it was really hard not to just sleep all morning. Even if my clock said 10, or even 11 or 12, it was dark enough that my brain thought, "Nah, it's still early. Go back to sleep!"

11:30 am on Jan. 1

The picture above is about what it looks like most days here (it maybe gets a little brighter). We don't live far enough north for complete darkness, but because of how the town is situated on the side of the mountain, we haven't had direct sunlight in well over a month. There's daylight, but we can't actually see the sun, even if it's a clear day.

Still there is such beauty here, sunlight or no. I love looking out across the tundra: it's like a watercolor of rosy pink, blue, and white, stretching out forever. I have a great view from my classroom, actually, and some days it's hard not join my students in just staring out the window!

The good thing is, we add several minutes of daylight each day now, so by the end of the month we may actually see the sun. Woohoo!