Keeping my hand in ...sort of
I've been assailed with impressions lately which I wanted to use to launch postings. There's never any time to sit and post something. Not even now. So I list a couple of things. Maybe someday I'll come back to them and use them like I originally intended.
This time of year, and its differences with earlier times of year struck me with more than usual force the other day when swimming. I haven't been in the pool for nearly a month for various reasons, otherwise I maybe wouldn't have seen it so vividly. The angle of the sun has lent a completely different feeling to the water, the exercise itself. Rather than staring down at us from on high, the sun now cuts across at a lower angle as we've made our way to the autumnal side of the rotation. There's a sharp, brassy feeling to the sunny Noon Hour now. It's warm, but incomplete. The water is cool, then warm, and it feels good to get lost along the black line, but a strange lack of joy follows me into the shower when I'm done. I reflect on this and it just feels all wrong, even though it isn't. Normally, I feel like King Kong after a good swim, as though I could pick up Sproul Hall and hurl it all the way to Tiburon, but not now. I've decided that its just the angle of the Mother Earth to Old Sol that has me discombobulated. I hope I'm right. If I am, then the feeling will go away. If I'm not, I will continue to have the impression that I'm in some color photo of a swimming pool from about 1952.
The time change shut the lid on the day rather abruptly. On November 2, the first day after the change that I walked across campus after work on the way to my car, I was struck with how oppressed everything felt. It was a combination of a leaden sky and reduced light, and timing that had me walking across campus when not too many others were. It was incredibly quiet. It seemed as though every conversation I passed was being whispered. I couldn't hear any traffic. There were no planes of choppers overhead (or maybe there were, but they were being muffled by some otherworldly force or some anomaly of wind and moisture). It was almost a stunned silence, as though Stanford had just won the Big Game with a last second 70 yard field goal. The trees didn't move, bicycles made no noise, dogs loped by nose to the ground, not wanting to be noticed, not playing with each other as dogs do. You could've thrown a frisbee and the most enthusiastic frisbee-catching border collie wouldn't have given it more than a sidelong glance before quickly slinking away. A strange kind of night came too early.
This time of year, and its differences with earlier times of year struck me with more than usual force the other day when swimming. I haven't been in the pool for nearly a month for various reasons, otherwise I maybe wouldn't have seen it so vividly. The angle of the sun has lent a completely different feeling to the water, the exercise itself. Rather than staring down at us from on high, the sun now cuts across at a lower angle as we've made our way to the autumnal side of the rotation. There's a sharp, brassy feeling to the sunny Noon Hour now. It's warm, but incomplete. The water is cool, then warm, and it feels good to get lost along the black line, but a strange lack of joy follows me into the shower when I'm done. I reflect on this and it just feels all wrong, even though it isn't. Normally, I feel like King Kong after a good swim, as though I could pick up Sproul Hall and hurl it all the way to Tiburon, but not now. I've decided that its just the angle of the Mother Earth to Old Sol that has me discombobulated. I hope I'm right. If I am, then the feeling will go away. If I'm not, I will continue to have the impression that I'm in some color photo of a swimming pool from about 1952.
The time change shut the lid on the day rather abruptly. On November 2, the first day after the change that I walked across campus after work on the way to my car, I was struck with how oppressed everything felt. It was a combination of a leaden sky and reduced light, and timing that had me walking across campus when not too many others were. It was incredibly quiet. It seemed as though every conversation I passed was being whispered. I couldn't hear any traffic. There were no planes of choppers overhead (or maybe there were, but they were being muffled by some otherworldly force or some anomaly of wind and moisture). It was almost a stunned silence, as though Stanford had just won the Big Game with a last second 70 yard field goal. The trees didn't move, bicycles made no noise, dogs loped by nose to the ground, not wanting to be noticed, not playing with each other as dogs do. You could've thrown a frisbee and the most enthusiastic frisbee-catching border collie wouldn't have given it more than a sidelong glance before quickly slinking away. A strange kind of night came too early.
posted by Harry at 9:07 AM
11 Comments:
Your 2nd paragraph is the opening to a story I would read more of.
This is a hard time of year for a lot of people. I hope they extend DST. Christmas (oddly enough) pulls me out of the funk, though.
Extend DST? They should abolish it. If the sun affects your life, adapt your life accordingly. But instead we adapt to the clocks, and then adapt the clocks to the sun. Stupid.
Yeah, that'll fly, Hip. Let's just get rid of clocks. Who needs them anyway?
Let's just get rid of clocks.
Oh, yeah, that's what I meant. NOT. Meanwhile AZ doesn't have DST and continues to grow its economy faster than CA. Coincidence? Or ...?
"Meanwhile AZ doesn't have DST and continues to grow its economy faster than CA. Coincidence? Or ...?"
Not. This has everything to do with it being in the sun belt, having less regulation than most states, and lots of cheap land. It's a boomtown on a grand scale. When the water starts to run out, and the air becomes unbreathable, and the temp never drops below 90, it'll slow down. Already, in the summer, Phoenix never cools off. It's an enormous concrete pan that just keeps on reflecting heat. It's horrible. How people can live with that is beyond me.
By the way Mark, Christmas has always been my favorite time of year. The family gatherings, the music (I loved going to Lessons and Carols at church), and the edible goodies always brought me out o fthe blues. I remember one year when they didn't, but that's a mere dark shadow in my way back when.
"Your 2nd paragraph is the opening to a story I would read more of."
I am definitely encouraged, then. I will go at it one of these days, and try to extend it; see how far I get. The question of when is one I better not ask now.
"Eloquently spoken, Harry"
Thanks, Wiggy. I remember that eveing rather well, and it was weird from start to finish. There was something dark-hearted on the march that night.
Not. This has everything to do with...
I only jokingly tied AZ's success to their lack of DST. The fact is not having DST hasn't slowed them down. I think DST is dumb. The sudden change, as you say, is weird and discombobulating.
Great writing! I, too, have noticed how muffled everything has sounded as of late.
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