sunrise, sunset

When I was a child, I used to enjoy the long summer evenings when daylight would last until bedtime. Summer was a time when the days were so long that I could sit outside with a popsicle after dinner and play shadow tag with my brother on the driveway. To me, summer equaled those late evenings when time seemed to stop.

When I moved to Japan, something changed. The summer days, while longer, did not last quite as far into the evening. The sun would set at seven-thirty, and by eight o’clock the sky would be dark. This made for lovely cool evenings when we could sit by the river with friends setting off fireworks, but it still felt late and fatigue would come easily.

I started to second-guess my memories from childhood. Maybe the sun really didn’t set quite so late in Indiana. Maybe it was just because I was young and my bedtime was early. But as I sat outside swinging and playing frisbee with the dog last night at nine-thirty in the shadowy summer dusk, I realized that I had been right. Summer evenings in Indiana last long into the night. And that’s the way I like it.

Sunrise in Indiana: 6:19a; Sunset: 9:17p
Sunrise in Japan: 4:46a; Sunset: 7:15p