Trust is an interesting bird - too much too quickly and the sun melts the wax. Feathers languishing behind, you spiral toward the ground.

Tarnish it, once earned, and the resentment stays lasting. No chemical bath, no amount of frenzied scrubbing, no mechanism can release the clustered fear and anxiety. Time and aging may fade the surface around the tarnish, may dim its dark brilliance but the moment remains. Scar tissue - resentment, the brutal remnant of a past not so easily forgotten.

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In other news (and certainly of a brighter sort) we passed an official mark on Friday. At 10 AM the circling sun hit eighteen degrees below the horizon. This marks the official designation between complete darkness and astronomical twilight. Not that we can see anything with the blowing snow at the moment (we’ve some quality sustained winds at thirty-five to forty miles per hour drifting in the station) but if we could, there would be the faintest of faint bits of light on the distant edge of our view.

When the winds clear, I’ll be out to look for the signs of the sun’s return, be out to catch the glow of the Southern Lights while I still can, and look forward to consistent daylight in another month or so.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the dark, the stars, and the quiet cocoon-like feeling they can offer. I’d be happy to keep them a while longer too but the physical and mental effects of the lack of light are beginning to take their toll. As a whole, our memories are failing, out tempers rising, and our patience faltering. We’re fortunate to have a very easy-going crew but the dark wears everyone down somewhat.

That, and it’ll be nice to take the coverings off the windows and to be able to see the horizon from inside again.