Midnight Sun
What’s it like to live under the steady gaze of the sun in our arctic locale?
The clock ticks . . . the sun is there . . . never blinking . . . never hiding . . .
Our day never really ends . . . just moving from one date on the calendar to the next. This continues for several months and brings with it several differences from living Outside. Relentless is this sun by your side . . . above your head . . . all the time . . . in your face.
Animals tend to be somewhat confused as birds who tend to ‘sing’ more at sunrise can be heard 24 hours a day belting their song until there seems to be nothing left . . . then there is another one close by who cranks it up.
Children can be found outside playing long past a ‘normal’ time when those of us who work and get up early would be heading for bed and that much needed sleep. No need for a night light as the kids who go to bed at a regular time hear the calls of their playmates still at play well past ten. The sound of a basketball being bounced on the street or hitting the backboard echoes through the open window as you lie there counting the bounces hoping to fall into that slumber only tiredness brings. The kids will eventually fall asleep in a tired heap, still squinting against the persistence of the light while the clock ticks on . . .
The horizon shrugs off its role as a place for the sun’s quick shuteye, the moon now appearing in the light . . . naked . . . with no place to hide as it makes its trek across the sky . . . no velveteen darkness as a backdrop to cloak the delicate craters of its face.
Tick, tick, tick as the sun clocks long hours until that time of year when the pendulum swings back the other direction and grows into that weak beam as fall and winter arrive. Too soon the sun will be gone and the darkness grows across this land again stealing the warmth with it.
All of this is true in
Ice
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