I woke up today when my b.c. alarm went off at noon, but couldn't
quite scrape myself off the mattress for another half an hour -- in
which to put on a bikini and go lay on a towel in the yard, which you
know is so very different. That's tanning. And since
Alaska gets about 12 sunny days during our 2 months of summer, and those
seem to mostly happen during business hours, you gotta carpe that diem.
So I dragged my night-owl ass out into the sun while it was still
around, to do something that I -- as a born and raised island girl --
never thought I'd ever do. SUNBATHE.
I've been laying out on our lawn so often, the grass is starting to pale in my basking area because I'm intercepting so much of its sunlight. As I lounged out there today, I stared lazily up at the trees and watched the sunlight shine off the leaves in the height of the day's heat. I reflected on the way each leaf glinted, the sun bouncing so brilliantly off each tiny facet in the canopy. It's a harder kind of light, the full force of the sun's light at high noon -- my favorite is the later light when the afternoon ripens, but before it declines into dusk. The light has a syrupy golden quality, and saturates the leaves; a positive sponge of photosynthetic light.
I've already shared my little linguistic invention heliotransfolium; well, as the sun reclines closer to the horizon, every leaf becomes radiant with a heavier golden glow, the maximum of example of the term. But in the heat of the day, when the sun is high, what I saw would have to be called helioepifolium -- sun on leaves, as opposed to through.
Mornings are terribly unpleasant for me, and I find the cold light of the morning sun unwelcoming. I like to join the day after it's been well-broken in by earlier risers. (I'm not even people at work until it's almost noon. But I've got them pretty well fooled with the heels & earrings and whatnot.) The blazing hard light of high noon has its perks, including its tanning power -- but give me that ripe honeyed light of late afternoon every time. Maybe this night owl is becoming crepuscular?
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| Thinking: "What have I become???" |
I've been laying out on our lawn so often, the grass is starting to pale in my basking area because I'm intercepting so much of its sunlight. As I lounged out there today, I stared lazily up at the trees and watched the sunlight shine off the leaves in the height of the day's heat. I reflected on the way each leaf glinted, the sun bouncing so brilliantly off each tiny facet in the canopy. It's a harder kind of light, the full force of the sun's light at high noon -- my favorite is the later light when the afternoon ripens, but before it declines into dusk. The light has a syrupy golden quality, and saturates the leaves; a positive sponge of photosynthetic light.
I've already shared my little linguistic invention heliotransfolium; well, as the sun reclines closer to the horizon, every leaf becomes radiant with a heavier golden glow, the maximum of example of the term. But in the heat of the day, when the sun is high, what I saw would have to be called helioepifolium -- sun on leaves, as opposed to through.
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| Helioepi(c)folium - every tree a jewel with a thousand sparkling facets |
Mornings are terribly unpleasant for me, and I find the cold light of the morning sun unwelcoming. I like to join the day after it's been well-broken in by earlier risers. (I'm not even people at work until it's almost noon. But I've got them pretty well fooled with the heels & earrings and whatnot.) The blazing hard light of high noon has its perks, including its tanning power -- but give me that ripe honeyed light of late afternoon every time. Maybe this night owl is becoming crepuscular?
It's so funny how different everyone is! If I DON'T get up in the early hours of the morning (I'm talking 5 or 6) then my day is just shot! I'm so much more productive when my day starts early. I wish it wasn't so but that's just how I operate I guess?
ReplyDeleteI totally dig it! I know many a morning person who has told me that if I just get in the habit of waking up early, I'll be a morning person. For years, then various months for one reason or another I would have to get up at terrible dawn hours, and I was never happy to look someone in the eye until after noon.
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