“What monster is calling me right now?”
This is the first thought to run through my head. It’s 5:30 in the morning, a raven caws in the distance, the sun hangs like it’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and my phone is ringing. I fling my phone onto my bed as I slowly get to my feet to begin my day. Walking to brush my teeth, I think, “Oh, the difference 4 hours make.”
Living in the Eastern Standard Time Zone never seemed like a luxury until most of the people who call me live 4 hours ahead of me. Before volunteering at KNOM, I have only existed in the eastern time zone. The trials of communicating with family and friends really are minor, however, when it comes to the time change. The bigger adjustment has been the length of the day compared to a day in the Lower 48.
The abundance of light at night has been a challenge. I’ll wake up in a panic, thinking I have overslept to a point that is obscene. I turn to glance at my clock and find it’s only 2:43am. The flashing digits make no sense; I cannot comprehend it is still morning. When I look at the numbers on my alarm clock and then turn to the window to see the wrong illumination, it feels as if reality has slipped out of sync. Days have sometimes seemed like drifting in an ocean without an anchor.
Recently, I took a photo of a sled dog at a local dog lot. The dog jerked its head to the side and whipped its tail back and forth as I took the picture. In the photo, the dog’s head and tail appear as if they are being pulled in opposite directions. I feel a kinship to this picture: I’ve felt as if parts of me are being pulled in different directions. Part of me is here in Nome, part of me is on the east coast, and part of me isn’t anywhere.
The shadows are slowly growing the more summer goes by; now, there is even a golden hour around 10pm that lasts two hours. The light of this season is slowly receding into the coming darkness of winter. It’s a reminder that, even though I have done and seen a lot in these past 2 months, I still do not have any idea what to expect next. I am just stuck in a time warp, waiting for it to make sense.
