A Very Good Place to Start

Julie Andrews sang "Let's start at the very beginning, a very good place to start. When you read you begin with "A, B, C," when you sing you begin with "do, re, mi." (Such a pretty nun!) When I began this blog, it was a way for me to be reconciled with living in the western end of the Eastern time zone. All my life, I had lived in the eastern end of the Eastern zone, and so all my life my time was shifted just a few minutes so that "true noon" happened a few minutes before noon. In Flint, "true noon" happens a half hour or so after noon on the clock. This meant the "natural" morning happened later on the clock, and while it meant that afternoons and evenings were full of sun, the start of the day has always been quite dark. And so I got up a little early to write and think and pray, and this attempt at bringing some awareness to the struggle to get up on the clock of my old home but with the sun of my new home.

What will the morning be like in Baltimore? I'm bringing that "very beginning" question to this transition.

Let's start with the length of days. On the winter solstice, Flint has 9 hours of light, from 8:02 to 5:02. In Baltimore, the day is a little longer with 9 hours and 24 minutes of light, from 7:22 to 4:38. If "true noon" happens halfway through the day, in Flint it happens at 12:32 p.m.; in Baltimore, it happens very close to noon on the clock, at 12:04 p.m.

A look at summer solstice yields the following: Flint's day is 15 hours and 22 minutes in duration, from 5:54 a.m. to 9:16 p.m. "True noon" is especially shifted due to Daylight Savings so that it occurs at 1:35 p.m. Baltimore's day is 25 minutes shorter at 14 hours and 57 minutes. "True noon" happens at about 1:07, again, largely the result of the Daylight Savings shift.

It will be interesting to see what it is like to have a little more sunlight in the morning, and a little more light in the day during the colder months. Summer will be fun shifting between my weeks in Maine and Rhode Island, and my visits back to Michigan. I'll get the light of my upbringing, and that western "deviant," and then the close-to-natural timing of my new home.

I'm looking forward to the experiment.

Melon today, and strawberries, and a tall cafe au lait.

Good morning!