Random thoughts on solar sanity

Today, September 22, at 5:18 pm, marks the autumnal equinox. At this point in time the Earth is at one of the four key points in its orbit around the sun. At the two ends of the orbit are the summer and winter solstices marking the points in our orbit where the our hemisphere, due to the Earth’s slant, is closest and furthest away respectively from the sun. The equinoxes, however, mark a tipping point. At the equinox, each hemisphere is equidistant to the sun. After that moment, we in the Northern Hemisphere will no longer be slanting toward to sun, but rather, away from it, each day being more pronounced than the last. What this means is that everyday between now and the winter solstice we begin to get less and less sunlight day to day. Its significance to me is that it is also the tipping point between my relative daily sunlight and that of everyone else I know. You see, the further north you are located in your hemisphere, the more severe the difference in sunlight becomes. At 5:18 I will switch from having more sunlight per day than everyone back home to the more depressing less sunlight per day. Here ends the astronomy lesson.

To mark this milestone, this beginning in a way, I wanted to set some baseline measurements with which you will be able to measure my sanity as I enter winter. I am doing this in an attempt, half facetiously, to make sure that if anyone notices a slip in my sanity, they immediately direct me to my sunlight imposter lamp sitting unplugged in the corner of my house. The way that I want to establish these baselines is to make a few statements indicating what I have come to see as normal living in Alaska. I feel I should also make a few statements indicative of the random thoughts already floating about in my head. Shall we begin?

I do not have a TV, DVD player, radio, and at the moment internet in my home. In addition, alcohol, from cooking wine to vodka, is prohibited by village ordinance in Tununak.

I feel that it is perfectly normal to buy twenty-five pounds each of two different kinds of beans and/or one hundred pounds of flour.

I feel that it is perfectly normal to consider buying twelve packs of Newman Os, and am quite taken with the fact that they are 15% off this month only! on Azure.

I look forward with great anticipation to getting packages in the mail, regardless of the outrageous cost of shipping.

I refer to four wheelers as Hondas regardless of manufacturer in the same way I call all tissues Kleenex.

I am in the process of procuring worms for a worm compost bin for my food scraps with the intention of creating compost then using the compost and my sun imposter to grow fresh vegetables.

Okay, a break, because I am beginning to think that I am already too late. But in the (butchered) words of Joseph Heller, “Those that know they are insane cannot possibly be insane because consciousness of insanity is the definition of sanity.” Perhaps there is still hope. And now I return to the random thought part of my baseline assigning.

We romanticize the Native Americans for their concepts on waste , regarding in high esteem the fact that after killing an animal they leave not a part unused. However, in our culture we regard the modern equivalent, a hot dog, as anything but romantic.

If someone were standing on the North Pole, every direction he or she pointed would be south. How would you give directions to that person?

Two jars of salsa are worth three boxes of cereal.

My knives are sharp. I have now cut myself twice – once slicing beets, once picking the seed out of a melon. I need to stop cutting myself until I am back in an area that has medical facilities I trust to stitch me up.

Eleven days equals twenty-one. Six to seven days equals never. Overnight equals the day after tomorrow. My brain just broke.

And that is that. Baselines set. Stay tuned. Hold on. It begins.