#AntarcticLog is a series of comics by Karen Romano Young. You can find the originals here.

How do you picture time? Does that seem like a strange notion? Not to a visual storyteller like me. Is time a wheel? a sphere? a line? a line with wrinkles? (Don’t forget, I’m a children’s book author, too.)  

For each of the last five years, since I started creating this #AntarcticLog science comic, I’ve considered how to picture time. In Antarctica, time is often a function of light. Or is light a function of time? And what about space, and Antarctica’s relationship to space — the sun — and us? 

This time of year represents freedom to many: Juneteenth is the day we commemorate the end of slavery in the United States.  July Fourth is the day we American’s celebrate our nation’s independence. In many northern cultures, we sing to the sun and the brightest night.  And in Antarctica, we celebrate the darkest day, which represents a swing…a roll…or a path back to the light. 

–Karen Romano Young is a writer, artist, deep-sea diver, and polar explorer. Follow her on Twitter & Instagram.