We’ve long since reached that point where the days are so long that the sun no longer rises in the east and sets in the west; it rises in the north and sets in the north. Daylight Saving Time notwithstanding, I spend the last month or so of each school year driving to work in daylight so bright it might as well be high noon.
Las Vegas in the summer can be frightful. Nothing illustrates the parched environment here better than the summer sky. It isn’t blue. It’s white. The parts of the sky farthest from the sun–the horizon, for most of the day–are a pale, robin’s egg blue, but most of the sky is a dead albino.
You know how a sign or book left in the sun for months or years will get all the color sucked away, leaving a washed out shell of what it was? The sky itself gets like that here.
But then the sun sets. And life gets amazing. The temperature instantly drops ten degrees. Color returns to a world blinded by too much light. A landscape that has been holding its breath all day gets to relax.
For that one hour that starts right after the sun goes down, the world is a milder, dimmer, calmer place. It’s still hot, and it’s still bright, but within reason–the insanity of the last fifteen hours is over.
People often say that everybody seems nicer during the holiday season; that as they Christmas shop, strangers are more likely to nod your way and smile. Summer dusk is like that. There’s a camaraderie. We made it through another day, together.
It’s worth enduring the day to enjoy the twilight.
