the end of night

[corvi]

Tonight is the last time it will be officially night here until June
29th. There will be twilight, when the sun is below the horizon and
not visible, but it will still light up parts of the atmosphere we can
see. Long slowly darkening green-blue twilights, like the lasting
resonance of a bell. In the small hours of the morning, the twilight
will have faded to a faint whisper of grey on the distant horizon. But
there will be no night.

There are sometimes strange clouds. Noctilucent clouds: wisps of water
vapor coalescing around smoke left at the top of the atmosphere by
meteors. They are so high up the sun is never below the horizon for
them, so they are lit up like daylight. Insubstantial blue wisps
shining in the twilight sky.

Last year I did fine, but this year the nightless hours are kicking my
butt. The house is perched atop a random lump of rock on the side of a
mountain, and there is nightless sky in every direction. (Even our
closets have windows. Who builds a house and puts windows in the
closet?) I am not sleeping well, and my dreams are strange. Exhausted
during the day. Been staring blankly at my work a bit more than I’d
like, though I think this particular project would be confusing even
if I was well rested.

Something in me aches for the safe return of night. And still: it is a
lovely luminous blue-green sky, like a bell whose ring does not fade.

Comments

[yam]

When juli posted about the approaching not-night-ness, I thought in surprise "Oh! I didn't know Salt Spring was north of me," which of course it isn't. I wonder if my idea of what night is is just different from what a hypothetical Brooke born a few states south of here would think - I notice the days getting longer, but June nights seem as nightly to my sensibility as any other. It's like learning that russian has different words for blue and light blue; picking out which blue word I need takes me aback a bit every time.

[maellenkleth]

Finnish has those two words, too.

[corvi]

Mongolian too: хөх (dark blue) and цэнхэр (light blue).

A cloudless sky is хөх. I guess I've seen a few skies that I'd consider a dark blue, but I would not consider it the standard descriptor. Which one, if either, is the sky colour in Finnish?

[corvi]

Hm. I lived pretty far south for a lot of my childhood, so maybe that's it. Or maybe the effect is more pronounced in our rural-ish setting. The long twilight that throws me off might just be normal "large city at night" levels of light, as complained about by someone who isn't used to it. (But with occasional weird glowing clouds).