evaporated

In the last two weeks, the darkness at night has disappeared like a puddle of water on hot asphalt. Today is the first day totally without civil twilight, so the "night" hours are spent in a sunset glow of mystery. The below-the-horizon portion of the sun's circle is completed behind the mountains to the north of Reykjavík, making for heartbreakingly beautiful light in the wee hours.

This excess of light makes sleeping suddenly seem like it should be more optional. I don't want to miss one minute of this peachy lavender sky, the navy silhouette of Esja, the witching-hour spook that settles over the city. Of course, the usual indicators of hour that I grew up with are so hard-wired that the fact that it's still light out means I feel like it's not bedtime yet, and then I suddenly look at the clock and realize it's past midnight. In the mornings, I get a similar effect, waking up with a start of "I'm late" guilt after noting the blazing yellow glow in the room. A peek at the clock shows that it's 6am, not noon.

I would love to know the average amount of sleep the Icelandic nation gets in the summer versus the winter. Just like it's easy to sleep until 11 every weekend morning in December, in May and June, 6 seems like a sensible hour to wake up. Mornings actually spent sleeping in have the feeling of an afternoon nap, since by 10 the sun is already noon-high.

However, in spite of the light indicating all systems go for Summer in Iceland, the weather has its own plans. We spent the morning in a haze of blizzard-level snow squalls passing over us. As I think I mentioned before, the seasons in Iceland are reliably only light and dark. Don't expect the weather to comply with those crazy notions about summer being warmer and snow free here! The silly thing is that people still dress as if it's summer, working open-toed sandals on a weekend night out, leaving the big winter coats at home, forgetting the hats. I thought about this yesterday as I walked home in a spirited snowstorm, hatless, wearing my thin sneakers and cotton blazer. I'm as bad as the rest of them now, but somehow, the light does make you feel warmer, as does the sure-to-be-proven expectation that the storm will surely pass us over as quickly as it arrived.