Confusion of Time

My body is awake.

World Time Zone Map
A map of world time zones from Wikimedia

At this point I know not to trust my sense of time or internal clock, I have traveled across far too many time zones. Entebbe to Portland required 27 hours of travel and crossed ten time zones. My body is simply not to be trusted.

The previous evening had consisted of little more than making it from the airport to my parent’s house, then directly to a long sought bed.

The clock reads nearly 7am.

How can this be? The time seems wrong and I have no confidence in the old LED alarm clock in the guest bedroom. Was it set properly? I fumble for the cell phone to double check the time. The phone confirms the seemingly inaccurate time.

I check to see if I had re-enabled cell service and auto time setting on the phone, I had turned these off on a phone far out of its coverage area. Again the time is confirmed and I am forced to accept that the displayed time is accurate despite evidence to the contrary.

It is cold and dark.

The darkness outside the window seems at odds with my now confirmed time of day. Where is the bright light of dawn?

As I wake and concious function returns I recall that I am now in Portland, not Hawaii or Uganda, far from the equator… This is latitude 45.5°N where in mid-October it might actually be dark at this time of the morning. Another logical conclusion at odds with experience and expectations.

Well? I am awake now. May as well face the day. At this point I make another realization… The clothing I had packed in Hawaii for travel to Uganda is not at all appropriate for Portland in October.

It is cold.

Author: Andrew

An electrical engineer, amateur astronomer, and diver, living and working on the island of Hawaiʻi.

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