The evening of June 21st I drove into Key West with Cheyenne on the back seat. My plan was to take her for a couple of long walks, leave her in the car at ten while I worked. At two am we'd leave and have a walk in the dark of night on the way home. The plan worked perfectly with a bonus, which was the setting of the sun at the end of the longest day of the year. 
From the car I took these pictures one handed and present them here un-retouched from the front seat as they happened.
Growing up in more temperate climates I used to dread the longest day as it was the beginning of the end of the summer, before the summer had even really begun. When I lived with seasons I spent altogether too much time looking ahead and anticipating, not least because I hated winter and cold and gray. In the Keys it's just another day. Winter is cooler and encourages a slightly different wardrobe and slightly different activities. Summer is hotter and paradoxically drives on indoors more but also into the water far more. Winter is no longer to be dreaded.
I remember summer at my father's retreat in Scotland 40 years ago sitting by the window, the insects outdoors were unbearable, and reading a book by the light of day at some late hour between ten and eleven. The absence of my mother meant I didn't have to go to bed! I remember the long drawn out dusk of high latitudes, it seems in my memory like hours between the time the sun disappeared and the night finally enveloped me. I recall with great joy sitting out, talking and feeling the slow inexorable descent of darkness minute by slow minute. In the sub tropics we are so close to the Equator darkness falls like a stage curtain, from day to dark with hardly a gap between the two. I miss twilight. 
No hills, no mountains, no valleys, no rivers, no subtlety. 
It's the Florida Keys.
From the car I took these pictures one handed and present them here un-retouched from the front seat as they happened.Growing up in more temperate climates I used to dread the longest day as it was the beginning of the end of the summer, before the summer had even really begun. When I lived with seasons I spent altogether too much time looking ahead and anticipating, not least because I hated winter and cold and gray. In the Keys it's just another day. Winter is cooler and encourages a slightly different wardrobe and slightly different activities. Summer is hotter and paradoxically drives on indoors more but also into the water far more. Winter is no longer to be dreaded.I remember summer at my father's retreat in Scotland 40 years ago sitting by the window, the insects outdoors were unbearable, and reading a book by the light of day at some late hour between ten and eleven. The absence of my mother meant I didn't have to go to bed! I remember the long drawn out dusk of high latitudes, it seems in my memory like hours between the time the sun disappeared and the night finally enveloped me. I recall with great joy sitting out, talking and feeling the slow inexorable descent of darkness minute by slow minute. In the sub tropics we are so close to the Equator darkness falls like a stage curtain, from day to dark with hardly a gap between the two. I miss twilight. No hills, no mountains, no valleys, no rivers, no subtlety. It's the Florida Keys.
2 comments:
While Denver, where I grew up, is not as far north as Scotland, I too miss the dusk, which in my childhood seemed to be a magic time that extended for hours, at least in summer.
I also had the good fortune to be in northern Germany on the longest day of 2002, when I could see the rays of the sun (though not the orb itself) skim around the horizon all night long - the longest dusk in my memory.
Still, I think the sacrifice of dusk is worth it come wintertime.
I have to agree, I don't think I could cope with the wild variation of 24 hours of darkness.
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