Day 14 Amaryllis in Arctic Windows

December 14, 2022

It was the middle of January 1998. I'd arrived in Naryan Mar a week after Russian Orthodox Christmas. Tatiana Ivanovna's potted amarilys bulb on the kitchen windowsill had a short green shoot, but that was all. The window was frosted over between the panes of storm glass making it impossible to see out (the view outside was a single streetlight in a courtyard, but I didn't know that for months). When I arrived it was well below freezing. A freak wind and cold storm had delayed my arrival by several days. Negative 50 is the same in ferinheit or celcius--Very Very cold! Naryan Mar is above the arctic line which means there are days when the sun never comes over the horizon. Today is the beginningn of that absence. It will reemerge after 16 days, but only just above the horizon, just peeking, rolling across the horizon for about half an hour. so when I got there in January we only had about 3 hours of daylight. Quite a rapid gain in light (they lost almost 19 minutes of daylight on the 13th and gain 27:28 minutes of light on the 30th when the sun returns). My conversational English classes were at various schools around the region. I'd catch the bus in half-light, come home in the dark. One day, I peeped out of my hood and fur hat and saw the lower torso of a man, just standing there. I walkded on a half tick then looked back. Still standing there. But I also saw what he had stopped for. The sky was filled with pink and gold, a golden hour like I'd never seen, but in the mid-morning. I threw my hood back and just watched the clouds dance and twinkle. The magic of it. The man kept glancing at me, grinning. I was grinning too. We never spoke a word to each other (probably because he could tell I was a foreigner in my bright yellow puffy coat). As the daylight increased, the amarilys on the kitchen window sprouted leaves and eventually a stalk with a flower bud. It bloomed just before I went home in April. I think about this a lot, especially when I'm sleepy during the winter months. It's a natural process to store energy to get us through the winter. The cold months are a gathered-in time, a moment we can reflect and have quiet. And the light revives and refreshes us. We are only a week away from that return. Hang on.