Love itOne of my very first memories was this: I’m standing on the green grass of my front lawn. The air was warm after a cool, Colorado spring. I squinted into the sun, a million times bigger than the Earth, and thought, “This is going to be a great summer.” I was 3.
Like flowers reaching their blooms to the sky, or the sun’s warm air – 27 million degrees at its core! – coaxing hibernating animals from their seasonal slumber, the sun makes me move, it beckons me outside. If the sun is out, I have a hard time staying in.
Before skin cancer was a thing, I actually didn’t mind sunburns, the warmth of the sun still on my skin days later, or how the sun could, alone, tire me out just from being under it all day. I love wearing sunglasses, for all the practical reasons everyone does, but also for the capitulation to the sun’s near-unavoidable power.
I could list all of the reasons I love Durango, but near the top of that list would be the 266 sunny days we get per year. I’m the guy who parts all of the curtains and pulls the string on the blinds as far as I can.
Yes, one day the sun will swallow the Earth. But for now, as John Denver once said, sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy.
— David HolubHate It I think that if I were an animal, I would be a naked mole-rat. I’d live underground as far from the sun as possible. I’d burrow into the deep, dust off a T-rex’s skull, and make it my home. Because I hate the sun. I like to avoid it at all costs.
The sun is a blistering, wretched thing. I’m fairly sure it’s been recorded somewhere as saying, “Gaze, ye mortals, on my flares. They shall destroy you.” And, what kind of vulgar jackass has coronal mass ejections (i.e., big-ass clouds of magnetized plasma shot into space) in front of other people? Control yourself, madam!
OK, sun, I’m afraid. I am. You make me sweat buckets. You can burn me to boils. You can slowly give me cancer. You finger out vicious sun flares teasing about the day one will make it to the Earth. If that doesn’t already prove your brooding, you can shoot plasma death wads into space. We get it. You’re a ghastly, nuclear furnace that our entire lives revolve around. You are going to supply us with energy until yer ancient, temperamental ass gets tired of it. Who could blame you? You’re getting 10 percent hotter every billion years. Which, sun, I’m not ageist, but I do take issue with your menopause eventually drying out Earth and killing everyone. You could at least toss some sun magic to our scientists to help with a solution. Not cool, Frau Star. Not cool.
— Patty Templeton
