When darkness falls
posted in Alaska, Arizona |OmegaDad was out in the field for a few days, and the dotter and I were able to leave the house later than normal (due to not having to drive him to work). So, this morning, when we left the house at 7:10 a.m., and it was dark, I was surprised.
It darkened my whole day, actually.
It was chilly and gray and windy, and it started out dark.
I’m afraid that my 11 years in Arizona, plus my years in sunny San Francisco (really!) (well, okay, the sunny East Bay), plus my 3 years in Arizona prior to that, have caused my body to think that sunlight is the natural state of things, and grey, cloudy, chilly, and windy is not.
So I spent the day in a major funk.
Hells bells, what is it going to be like for me in the middle of winter if I feel this way now?!
In addition, my underbrain keeps telling me that it’s too early in the year for heavy-duty jackets, that the sun will shine and things will warm up. This is okay for me–I’ve got a Polartec fuzzy that I wear which covers quite a range of temperatures, and I know enough to put my hands in my pockets when they get cold.
But for the dotter, hmmm. We’re used to wearing mainly fuzzies and light jackets, with the heavy stuff broken out only on severe days, and immediately consigned back to the coat hooks to wait for another batch of severe days. In other words, we don’t have any suitable jacketry for the dotter. Who, by the way, does not know enough to put her hands in her pockets when they get cold. So we need to order the child a decent jacket/coat combo that will keep her warm down to, say, -15F. And boots. And snow pants. So we have to measure her. But we haven’t found my sewing stuff, which is where our soft measuring tape is. (Don’t worry: I’m going to use string instead, and things will get ordered this weekend.) (Yes, we can buy stuff here, it’s just that I’m tired of asking the dotter if she likes this one or that one, and having her go “Eh”. I’m ordering some stuff from Lands End, and if she doesn’t like it, tough.)
I go outside in the morning, and my underbrain says, “Hey! What’s with this chilly stuff, dammit?! It’s not supposed to be chilly yet! Where’s the sun?!”
In Arizona right now, the sun is rising at 6:15 a.m. The sun sets at 6:30 p.m., whereas here it’s setting around 7:30. But I’ve got the feeling that it’s not the total amount of daylight that counts, but the timing of that daylight–same amount of daytime in Arizona as here right now, it’s just shifted. And, after 11 to 15 years of my body seeing late morning sunrise as the equivalent of deep winter, my underbrain is flummoxed by a late morning sunrise meaning the end of September.
As a result of all this, my body has kicked into winter mode. The main evidence of this is that my body desires sleep all the time.
Wah. Wah, wah, wah. I’m down and grumpy. Call the wahmbulance.
