Night and Day

LUND--It is 12:44 a.m. and the sky outside is a deep azure blue. It is dark out but there is light in the sky. It is night but that qualification, up here, is no longer, for this time of year, exact. I have, as compared to times past, been mostly to bed rather early--by midnight or before most times. But last Friday I was still awake at half past three and at that hour it was the beginning of the dawn. At after 10 p.m. there is still light in the sky. I can only imagine what it is like farther north. We are entering the hours and days where the distinction between night and day, dark and light ceases to have exact meaning. The light here is strange and, I think, leads to strangeness. Dark, so dark for so long and more than just dark but gray and gray and mist and gray and then light of absolute clarity, hot sun with cool shadows, light through the hours of night and a sky that never goes completely black. It is strange in the northern lands.