I Saw the Sun!!

(This photo by Krista Cudmore. She teaches Gym at the school.)

Today it happened!  The sun rose and stayed above the horizon for a little while! It was glorious and heartwarming all at the same time.  You know how sometimes you experience something and all you can do is smile a huge goofy grin while you are in the middle of it all?  Well, here I was at noon today driving home from school for the afternoon, husband by my side and three happy kids in the back because school was closed for the afternoon due to a funeral in the gymnasium.  We saw the glorious sunrise and decided to go out to the airport where it was relatively flat and we took some pictures of God's majesty, as you can see.

Later on, about half an hour later, I saw this light reflecting off the neighbour's window and I couldn't figure out what it was.  It was light out - full daylight, and I looked out the window toward the right/east and there it was - a pinkish orange globe all 360 degrees of it, above the horizon and shining just for me, or at least that was what it felt like at the time.  I greeted the sun with my second goofy awe-inspired grin of the day, and said a prayer of thanks for daylight, the glorious sunrise and the sun itself.  What a sense of peace and happiness I felt coursing through me, and my heart was full of gratitude.

A brief glimpse of the sun in early November.

It has been a long haul.  At first it was interesting to watch the sun rise at 10:15 while the kids were outside for morning recess.  The following week, morning recess was in the dark.  After another few weeks, afternoon recess was in the dark, too.  It was
fascinating, and we kind of liked it....for a while. I noticed the increasing darkness more during the days I wasn't teaching, having to keep table lamps on 24 hours in the living room, and overhead lighting in the kitchen.  It was easy to lose track of time, too.  We'd be all snug and cozy in the house, each of us doing our own thing, when either Greg or I would look at the time and realize it was past the kids' bedtime.

The extent of the sun by the end of November.

Since I am awaiting knee surgery, I am not walking very far these days, so I did not see much of the night sky outside, and with the extreme cold temperatures below -40C, I am not really all that interested in it either!  However, every now and then I had a moment when I would look up and just take a moment to note the time and the shade of darkness I was experiencing at that moment.

Yes, I said shades of darkness.  Sometimes the sky was so black it was difficult to see more than a few feet in front of you, especially on cloudy or snowy nights.  When it snowed (the very little it has) I almost felt claustrophobic with the low, heavy clouds and the darkness all around.  Sometimes on a clear night the sky lights up with the Northern Lights, and then we saw (and still see) the orange, yellow, green, pink, blue and purple lights dancing.  Greg and I laughed because we are living so far north, we realized that we had to look in the southern sky to see them!  On clear nights, the stars and the moon were incredibly bright, especially when approaching a full moon, and the lights reflecting off the snow made it feel like the dawn before a glorious summer day, only about about 65 degrees cooler.

Hello sun!!

My favourite, however, was the indigo sky.  That was the closest colour to daylight that we saw for several weeks, when the darkness lightens, but there is no trace of sun or daylight at all.  This colour is intense and full and it filled the entire sky, a promise of lighter and brighter days to come.  The sky used to turn this colour for a short time in the afternoon, but now, a few months later, it is happening in the late morning, leading to a noontime sunrise.  Before long, it will be happening in the morning and we will back to 'normal' until things begin to sway the other way.  The days are going to get longer and longer, until, around June 21st the sun won't set.  Sure, it may get a little dusky, but the sun will not leave the sky.  We look forward to that with immense curiosity too!

Up here, there is a great issue with attendance at school.  There are kids who hardly ever show up in the mornings for school.  They come waltzing in after lunch, bright eyed and bushy tailed, and you find out that they didn't go to bed, or get put to bed, until 3 am, and therefore slept until 11, got up, had brunch, and headed to school.  At first I was quick to blame the parents.  I mean, what parent would send their kid to bed at 3am?  Then I took a step back.  Really and truly, it is so easy to lose track of time, and when the outside looks the same around the clock and there is no sun to signal the daylight and night time, who am I to judge?  Also, I have experienced that feeling now.  The oh-my-goodness-do-you-know-the-time look that Greg and I have exchanged in reference to our kids, who may very well know the time but of course aren't saying anything!  Why do we have to have school during typical 'daylight' hours?  Why can't we have school from noon to 6 or 7 pm?  It would definitely accommodate a lot of families!

Regardless, the sun is a welcome sight up here.  We did enjoy blue skies and sunlight over the Christmas holidays when we were back in Ontario for three weeks, and I admit it was difficult to be plunged back into darkness again, but today sure did give me hope and a sense of wild and utter delight that the days of darkness are soon to be behind us. Ask me in May how I feel about the sunlight when I have to use blinds to block the sun so we can sleep - but that is a blog for another sunny day down the road.