The eye that burns

[gfish]

I was surprised, in my inanimate object post, to see how many people listed the sun. Greeting the sun would never, ever occur to me. Partly just because, well, I can't really look at it. Beyond that, though, I guess I only really notice the sun when I resent it. Part of that is residual middle-school geek posturing, probably, but really I quite enjoy outdoors physical activity these days. Sunrise means an all-nighter is over, and people are going to start waking up soon. It means the magical time of quiet isolation and productivity is over. It means a jarring transition from cool, mysterious pre-dawn to glaring, tacky, high-contrast day. It can also mean the heat of the day is about to start, something I often dread. The Mackenzie trip didn't help any -- a full month of being constantly aware of the sun, and generally resenting how hard it was to get to sleep.

(The only circumstances I can remember being glad to see the sun rise are unlikely to be repeated. Last January at the Inauguration, after standing in the -5 degree freezing cold for 3 hours, hoping for some warmth. And after our first night on the Columbia, when I couldn't sleep and paced the beach for a couple hours waiting until I could wake the others and get going.)

So, yeah. The night holds the key.

Comments

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

The key to what?

;)

[tylik.livejournal.com]

Huh. I generally get up well before sunrise. The sun usually still makes it up before I'm done doing forms... I have an involved relationship with the sun, but I like dawn an awful lot. It always feels very clean. Not so many of other people's thoughts cluttering things up.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I felt similarly about the sun for a long time.

I still have a love-hate relationship with it. Don't like being *in* it but I do love the rich saturated colors you get with it.

Well, actually, in the four months when Tennessee actually gets cold, I do like being in it. But that's less than half the time.

[jadine.livejournal.com]

Why do your all-nighters end when the sun comes up?

When I was in college, the quiet time bracketed sunrise - there were often noisy people up until dawn, and very few people got up until way after sunrise.

These days, I can keep going until noon and barely even notice sunrise if I'm focusing.

[peteralway.livejournal.com]

Daylight is so gauche!

Darkness is the new black!

The sun is the diurnal death of astronomy--at least until we get our sunspots back.

[ionan.livejournal.com]

I hated the sun until I moved to Seattle. Now I can't get enough o' dat shit. In Florida it was just there all the goddamn time, and going out in it was out of the question. Now that I only get a few weeks of clear, sunny days in the Northwest, I treasure it a lot more. Also, the sunlight doesn't seem as harsh and hostile here.

[orawnzva.livejournal.com]

Greeting the sun would never, ever occur to me. Partly just because, well, I can't really look at it. Beyond that, though, I guess I only really notice the sun when I resent it.

Have you had a look at my nocturnal filk musical (http://orawnzva.livejournal.com/63075.html)? Question diurnal-normativity! (Seriously, since writing "Walk in the Day", it's become much harder for me to take turns of phrase which assume a diurnal moral orientation for granted... which may not have been the most useful kind of privilege to unpack first.)