Creeping Toward Equinox

Have you noticed? It is staying light longer in the evening. (!!) I crave the sunlight of summer. Well, actually, I guess I crave the sunlight of March through June. By the end of August, you can already tell that the sun is moving into the winter mode of early darkness. But from February to July, it's my favorite time of year. I just love evenings when it is light until 8:00 or 9:00 o'clock. It just feels so much better to leave work and have some daylight left to enjoy.

Part of the problem is that I have worked so often in buildings with no windows. In Maryland, for 10 years we had a school without windows. I'd have recess duty everyday and so I had 30 minutes of outdoor time and that was good. The first year in Vegas I had a room with glass bricks up high but they let in natural daylight, and I could get by without the lights on when I was alone in the room and in the morning, the light was bright enough to leave off the lights for the students. The second year I was in the "cabin"--portable classroom. Now my classroom is underground! The school I'm in was a prototype, build mostly underground to save fuel costs. Here in the desert, air-conditioning is a must, and they experimented to see if it would be more efficient to have most of the building underground where the temperature was more even. Maybe...but the building costs apparently far exceeded any off-set of the heating/cooling things, plus they've never solved a leakage problem around the skylight in the hallway just outside my door. But, it means, I'm in a windowless environment again.

I loved our schools in Southern California. They were the old fashioned, built around a courtyard kind with a full wall of windows that looked out onto a square. You didn't need heating, you didn't need air-conditioning. Usually you didn't need the lights on either. But, it takes a rather specific climate to have that kind of school. Kids need natural lighting. So do I.

So when this time of year comes around again, I always feel younger, happier, calmer, kinder. Sunlight---elixir of the gods.