I got out of the shower and saw the orange brightness of the sunrise through the trees.  It started small and got a bit bigger and brighter in the few minutes that I dried off.  Then it hit me: This second-floor bathroom window faces west!  In the next few minutes, I was trying to figure out if I was in the Twilight Zone or not.  I methodically mulled over the direction of the house where I was staying—back, front, north, south—and swiftly came to the conclusion that if all else that I knew to be true was indeed true, the sun appeared to be coming up from the west.  I didn’t know what to think or do next, so I kept getting ready for work.

When I moved to the other end of the large bathroom and looked out the window from a slightly different view between the trees, I then clearly saw that there were a couple of tall downtown buildings about a mile away that was reflecting the rising sun IN THE EAST!

Don’t judge me. I’ve lived in quite a few houses in the last four months.  I’ve had some moments—only a few—of disorientation.   I always know where I am when I wake up; only one morning I awoke and expected to see the nightstand and lamp from my old house. I missed a haircut appointment, which I NEVER do. I remembered it in the morning, remembered it in the afternoon and left work only thinking of returning to ‘my home’ in Geist. I lost my glasses somewhere in one house where I stayed. I was so glad that I had a spare pair—but I didn’t know where they were and couldn’t find them. They certainly aren’t in the containers in the car where I expected them to be. I was then homeless AND glassesless. Fortunately my regular glasses were found under a couch a few days after I left.

And, yes, I obviously know that the sun rises in the east.  But what would you think if you actually SAW it rising from the west?  You’d probably do exactly what I did.  You’d keep getting ready to go to work.