Burning Daylight

randy@letters-to-rachel.memorial

February 29

Dearest Rachel -

Well, honey, it's official: we are clearly in summer. Not just because it's so warm out (that could just as easily be attributed to the fact that we're not that far from the equator, although we're moving further away from it by the minute), but because it's light out even at the still ridiculous (if not obscene) hour that I find myself waking up. Honestly, when I see the sunlight seeping in through a gap in the blackout curtains, pick up my phone to check the hour, see 5:55, and realize it still hasn't updated for the last time change we went through after leaving Tahiti, I know it's rising way too early for us all.

Even if I wanted to get up and do something, there's not a whole lot to do. I may yet do an essay about how this ship – or cruise ships in general – are in fact, a prototypical 15 minute city, with everything one would need or want within a 15 minute walk from wherever you are. However, cities tend deprive themselves on being places "that never sleep," and that just isn't the case here. Oh, I'm sure things are bustling below decks and in the crew areas, but that's not something I can (or necessarily want to – why spoil the magic?) see. At this hour, basically everything is closed, even the gym (if only technically) – and I just spent an hour and a half there last night, so I'm not particularly interested in that.

And the pool area is roped off, so that's not an option, either (which would disappoint you). To be fair, I'm suddenly being made aware of the fact that it's actually raining on deck, so it isn't as if the weather is particularly conducive to such an activity to begin with.

I can't even actually grab breakfast for a couple of hours, as the Windjammer doesn't open until seven. Not that thinking about food first thing in the morning is a good sign, but it wouldn't hurt to get my metabolism going and processing things, since we're already burning daylight.

All of which is what's starting to get under my skin. For all that we as humans have needed to be productive during the day (because it was prohibitively difficult or expensive to create or maintain light at night throughout much of recorded history), it's amazing how much of it we let go by these days, because it's "too early" to be up and about. Not that I disagree about the earliness of the hour, as such – I'd certainly like to go back to sleep at this point – but it seems as if it should go against our nature to spend so many of our waking hours in the dark. Even as we take dinner, it's amazing to watch as the sky rapidly turns from blue to black – out in the open ocean, with no other source of light pollution but our own, it's pretty stark – and I get this strange feeling that we aren't meant to be functioning in such an environment. We are supposed to be calling in a night when the sun does, and rising in turn with it.

But we don't; why? Why do we stay up so late into the evening, and then, when morning comes, we can't be bothered to start our day?

To be sure, it's understandable in summer, when the sun gets up so early in places like home (after staying up pretty late itself, come to that) that it would be silly to limit our sleep time to the few hours it bothers to disappear behind our little corner of the earth. But at present, we're only a few degrees below the equator yet; we've probably got thirteen, maybe fourteen hours of daylight to deal with. Why is it that, in those first few hours, everything is still shut down? I'm not talking about a few people (like you, ahem) sleeping in of a morning; I'm talking about everything still being closed. Again, for a "city that never sleeps," this seems to contradict that aspiration. And while I suppose this has to do with the fact that it's just in line with the circadian rhythm of its passengers – certainly, as I'm wandering about the ship, I'm well aware that I'm pretty much alone as I do so I'm almost curious as to how that came to be in the first place.

It feels like some sort of chicken-and-egg phenomenon; do we stay up late because things are open, or do things stay open because we stay up late? it's not as if I'm going to get any answers, since I'm the only one up, and all I can do is ask them.

Of course, as the morning wears on, and I write these questions down, they slowly become moot. Everyone gets up, everything opens up, I fill myself up, and the day, such as it is, begins as the sun makes its way out from behind the clouds (it would seem that the captain is taking pains to ensure that we pass through clearer weather as much as possible, especially during daylight hours). Why bother asking such questions; just get out there and enjoy the day, right? And I guess I probably should.

So I'm going to close this letter at this point, with all those questions completely unanswered. All I can ask at this point is that you keep an eye on me, honey, and wish me luck. I'm going to need it.