The Hobart Chronicles XXXI: A New Dawn

“I sent a message out into the dark”
- Ben Lee, 2005

“Sun in the sky, you know how I feel”
- Nina Simone, Feeling Good, 1965

Let there be light! As the seasons turn, so does the Tasnarnian Mood. The days grow longer, and people’s outlooks seem to lighten in parallel. They smile at strangers in the street; shopkeepers have a bit of a joke. Even the drones at the pickle factory, a pretty grim bunch by long habit, are displaying a new light-heartedness.

Does sunlight really matter? 'Ken Oath it does! In Tasnarnia, it’s not the cold (not excessive, especially when properly attired) or the rain (Slobart is the second-driest capital behind bAdelaide) that makes the winters so interminable; it’s the short, short days.

By the last weeks of July, the ordinary 9-to-5 wage slave rises in darkness, travels to work through a grey dawn at 8.30am, and at about 5.10pm someone flicks off the big light switch in the sky so you travel home in the darkness.

Even snow on Mt Wellington, a novelty in May, has become a curse by July: as the wind whips in from the west, tearing across the mountain and into Slobart, it just worsens the windchill factor by about a million degrees.

Of course, Tasnarnia is well above the Antarctic circle, and there are a good couple of hours of daily sunlight even in the depths of winter. It’s not exactly Finland, or Siberia. So what am I whingeing about?

Trust me, sunlight matters. I never believed it before coming to the island, but two winters later I’ve come around to the local way of thinking. The short days and long nights drag down normally good-natured people; the local tendency towards taciturnity becomes positively sullen. And by about the third week in July, EVERYONE gets sick. With people’s resistance at a minimum, not even Glen 20 on the mic socks prevents a bad cold spreading like the plague.

This is, of course, a hazard in my line of work. It was particularly inconvenient this winter. No sooner do I get several teeth ripped out and a plate installed, giving me a debilitating (if entertaining) lisp, then my colleagues start dropping like flies and I have to get back behind the mic just to keep us on air. (Thank God the plate comes out for times like this).

Then I get sick too, just as a few of them (but not enough) are struggling back to work. I sit at my desk, shivering with fever, trying desperately to launch internet streaming by the set start date. I cough so hard the plate just about shoots out of my mouth. The stuffed sinuses make me cranky. Don’t laugh at the lisp, Sunshine, I may just punch yer lights out.

Some time last week, the weather pendulum began its slow swing back the other way. It’s not quite so dark at hometime. You enjoy a pretty red sunrise over breakfast. And people have been transformed! There’s a new sense of goodwill and optimism. Some faces re-learn the art of smiling. Other things are more often right than wrong – live crosses to press conferences, midyear reviews, plans for events, all seem to involve a little less belligerence and heartache.

Even my mouth responds. Just 6 days after the brace is installed, I report faithfully back to Dr W, who informs me my teeth have already moved one whole millimetre – a full half of what he wants them to move. Remarkable. No wonder the buggers were hurting. Dr W smiles: “They’re supposed to hurt.”