Sunday, October 1, 2023

A Different World

It's sometimes hard to appreciate how different the same place can be. 

I don't notice the change in seasons in and around home all that much. They're so slow and subtle that by the time you realize that the Sun isn't rising until 7:30 in the morning it isn't rising until 7:50. You don't get that it's been setting well before 8 until it's setting at 6:45. Then I visit Hessel in Michigan's glorious Upper Peninsula in late September and the differences from the Fourth of July, the last time I was here, are stark.

Yesterday I was star gazing at 6 AM. No sign of old Sol, not even a hint that he might be prowling about. But the stars were out in force even with a nearly full Moon, if you looked in the right direction. At the same time in July the Sun has obliterated the full Moon by almost a half hour. I've taken my morning walks then as early as 5, in a reasonable amount of dawn color.

Last night I went to the 6:30 Mass in Detour, around 35 minutes east of Hessel, for my Sunday obligation. Yeah, I know, like me Uncle Charles used to tease, I'm really a Seventh Day Adventist. That's funny if you appreciate religious humor. But however that may be, by the time Mass was over and I was making the drive back to Hessel, while it wasn't exactly dark it was surely the evening twilight. And it was dark by the time I was back at the house just after 8. 8 PM in Hessel three months ago? We would still have daylight for nearly two more hours, and twilight until about 11.

It's still great because it's still Hessel. It just doesn't look like it.




No comments: