In a few days, we’ll pass the autumnal equinox and enter that half of the year when there is more darkness than daylight in the northern hemisphere. That’s always a sobering thought for me. I feel myself hunkering down, turning inward, getting ready to hibernate. I don’t rue the darkness; I just try to adjust to it.
Night lights help. Stars in the sky, a fire in the hearth, candle glow; even the little nightlight that serves as a sentinel in the bathroom—anything that helps to keep the darkness at bay. There must be some atavistic impulse in us left over from the time when we lived in caves or in cabins out on the frontier and could hear the wolves howling in the forest. We gathered together, locked the door, put another log on the fire, and burrowed down deep under a pile of blankets. Of course, it’s different now. I haven’t heard a wolf howl in years and I have an app on my phone that can turn up the heat in the house before I get out of bed on some cold dark morning. Even the coffee pot can turn itself on. We live in an age of miracles.
I thought about all this a few evenings ago when some friends had gathered together to share a delicious meal. It was a pleasant evening and we ate outside. Our host had recently restored an old lantern, exchanging candlelight for electricity, but the lantern’s glow was still warm and soft. We admired our host’s workmanship but I couldn’t help but wonder what stories that old lantern could tell us if he had also been able to give it a voice. You see, I’ve always believed that objects have stories, too.
Maybe there was a time when the gathering darkness made us huddle together in fear, but now I find its cloak calming. Don’t get me wrong: I fancy daylight as much as anyone but now that I’m getting on in years, I’m finally able to embrace winter’s darkness. Yes, it has its price, but maybe it’s one worth paying. Or so I tell myself. Now when the streetlights come on at an earlier hour and when evening begins to drift silently down just like the leaves from the sycamore tree in front of our house, I can still recall the fireflies of summer—the ones I used to catch when I was a child and the ones the grandkids still chase. All those timeless moments now wrapped in velveteen darkness.
There’s much to be said for summer evenings when the light lingers like friends around a table or out on the porch. Nothing wrong with that. But now, instead of hearing Dylan Thomas remind me to “rage, rage against the dying of the light,” I think maybe the gathering darkness is just the yin to summer’s yang. Our task isn’t to fight it but to invent better ways to celebrate it. Read more good books. Cook a redolent stew. Look up and see more stars. Make a friend of darkness.
Or so I tell myself.
I’ll be right back.
