I am a sun worshipper. I forget this sometimes, but it's true. I live for sun. I'm surprised I haven't yet made a soltice pilgrimage to the sun tunnels to burn sage and dance in circles (or whatever a proper sun worshipper might do).
When I was making grad school decisions, the clincher was probably reading somewhere that Ft. Collins has 360 days of sunshine a year (and it pretty much did). Once, during an atypical week of cloudy skies a professor remarked that the sun better come out soon or students would start killing themselves. I also briefly considered attending college in Fairbanks, Alaska until I read that it had the highest suicide rate in the nation (along with other extreme responses to cabin fever).
Now I live in the land of smog. It's smog people, not that hopeful " haze." Air so thick and dirty, it coats your car. Sometimes I even forget that there is a sun--a total faith crisis.
But luckily if you drive high enough (maybe those Babel tower building folks lived in an inversion) you can find some evidence for your tenacious faith. Sun. Real sun, not sun that sets behind smog before it retreats behind the real horizon.
Today, Will and I hiked (so little snow you can hike) up to Dog Lake. At the top, the sky was blue and fierce. There was so much sun that I didn't have to wear gloves or a coat or a hat. I was so ecstatic, I even climbed a tree (which didn't go so well, the tree being a wobbly aspen).
This is just to assure all of you Salt Lakers that there is still a sun.
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5 comments:
This sounds like a myth some heroic quester brings back to the people. Please keep telling these stories of this "sun" you speak of.
Thanks for the link to the sun tunnels. Sounds like a cool day trip!
But c'mon, even though there is no "sun" instead there is smog, it is not raining 24/7.
I, formerly of the Northwest, cannot complain about the lack of sun here. I can complain about the smog, but not the lack of sun.
BTW, if it rained, the air would be cleaner. Not that I want it to rain all the time. But a little, right now, wouldn't hurt.
Also, Alaska. Like 3 hours of daylight!!! No wonder the suicide rate is so high.
I took three hikes this past weekend in order to enjoy clean air and the sun.
Just yesterday we were coming down the mountain from a hike as the sun was setting for the first time under the smog, then a second time as we hit the car. Very bizarre.
Sun? What is this thing you call sun?
I loved the link to the sun tunnels. Dr. Write and I are committed to visiting the sun tunnels.
Fort Collins definitely hasn't had 360 days of sunshine this year....we still have over a foot of snow on the lawn and several glaciers on the side roads in our neighborhood left over from the pre-Christmas blizzard. The sun is never around long enough to melt the old snow before a new storm shows up!
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