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Category: light

Bring on the Light

Bring on the Light

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Maybe it was the debate last night or maybe it’s just that time of year, but this morning there was no hesitation. I had barely opened my eyes when I came downstairs and plugged in the full-spectrum light that gets me through the winter.

The lamp adds minutes to the morning, tweaks circadian rhythms and helps banish the winter blahs.

It could be a placebo, but I’ve written enough about seasonal affective disorder to believe that light makes a difference.  So here I sit, a bit warm, if you want to know the truth, because it isn’t cold out there yet, just dark. Very, very dark.

Dark House

Dark House

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Woke up this morning to a dark house. It was an early rising, and I’m used to coming downstairs to  dim light and shadows, thanks to a fluorescent light over the kitchen sink that has become so much a fixture that I don’t notice it anymore — unless it’s out, as it was today.

Gone were the shadowy shapes of the worn couch and wing chairs. Gone the hutch and table. Gone the carpet and trim. Instead, the blue dial of the clock radio face asserted itself, and the microwave timer threw its glowing dots into the void.

It was a different downstairs that greeted me this morning, a blank and mysterious one. One that made me realize that what I usually think of as darkness isn’t that at all. It’s only a dusky substitute.  

What Light Reveals

What Light Reveals

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Already the sky is lightening. The birds — not just the first, brave one, but a chorus of them by now — are making dawn an aural as well as visual event.

I revel in the extra light — and the warmth and humidity that go along with them. But it struck me the other day that early mornings this time of year resemble a public beach at low tide. The waves pull back to reveal not just a whelk or a sand dollar, but a sandwich wrapper and a bottle cap. The flotsam of the day, that which is better left hidden.

Early light shows us the dog walker in pajamas, the late-arriving teen, the neighbor dashing out in robe and slippers to scoop up the morning paper. It shows us the blurred eyes of the commuters; in fact, it makes our fellow passengers on the platform more individual and real because we see them as more than just vague shapes.

I have this thought every year, appreciating the mercy of darkness, its absolution. Some morning duties — even and including the trip to work — are best done under its cover.

First Bounce

First Bounce

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I arrived home in the afterglow. The sun had set but the western sky was still blazing.

Copper had been cooped up all day and was happy to see me. We went outside for our little ritual: First I throw day-glow orange tennis balls so he can fetch them — and then I bounce on the trampoline while he runs around the yard as if I’m still throwing the day-glow orange balls.

It was my first bounce of the season, my first bounce of 2015, for that matter. The tramp has been snow-covered for a month.

It felt good to be jumping; the world has that soft edge that it has when one is moving or bouncing through it. The house glowed yellow, a beacon in the dusk. We stayed out till the light left the sky. 

Almost Solstice

Almost Solstice

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Only hours from the shortest day, I leave the house in lessening darkness. A few houses are still lit  from last night, a subtle defiance. Above it all a crescent moon, purer than the others, though just reflection.

Of course we need the light, will take it any way we get it, are drawn to flames, fires, a faraway porch bulb in the rain.

I catch myself dreaming of summer, of days long enough to waste an hour. Now every minute is precious as we tick down inexorably to the end.  

The Grass is Shining

The Grass is Shining

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Because it’s new. Because it’s well-watered. Because it’s May. These are some reasons why the grass is shining.

I’m not really sure, you see. It may just be the way I look at it, the way the wind bends the spears. The angle of the sun, the time of day, planetary alignment.

But I walk around, examine it from all sides. It’s shining no matter where I stand.

I don’t remember it shining like this other years. But it was a long winter, a long spring. The grass was biding its time. We all were. But now it’s summer and the grass is shining.

Open Door

Open Door

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Other topics were rattling around in my head this morning. But then I turned to look behind me, through the tidier than usual expanse of the living room, and saw this.

The front door open with just the storm door closed. Light pouring into the house from the east. Morning light that blots out the landscape, the bleeding heart, the azalea, the forget-me-nots, the lone tulip. (What happened to the others? I suspect deer!)

With the door open, the hall elongates and the floor shines. The world lies waiting, resplendent. All the promise of a May morning.

The outside comes in, not in its unique particulate form (not the way I see it now, for instance), but in a blur of possibilities, a smudging of light.

Jump on the Day

Jump on the Day

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For the owls among us — heck, for most people — tonight’s time change is reason to cheer. In come the long, languorous evenings of spring and summer. In come barbecues, alfresco dining, after-dinner strolls and cricket-addled evenings. Not yet, of course, but we’re finally moving in that direction.

For the early-risers among us, though, the time change means a return to dark mornings.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. I’m so conditioned to predawn rising that morning light on a weekday makes me nervous. Have I overslept? What have I missed?

Waking in darkness is the ultimate jump on the morning. It’s being up before it’s day. And starting Monday, I’ll have it again.

One Hour Late

One Hour Late

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Morning comes late out here on the western edge of the eastern time zone. It’s 8 a.m. and the day is still groggy and gray.

If I lived here full-time, I might be less a morning person, more a creature of the night. In summer it’s light here till 10 p.m. and even in winter it’s long past 5 before the day goes away.

I think how far the light has to travel, what it passes on the way. The hills and hollows, cities and towns, birds and trees. Daylight sweeping east to west, bringing us morning …  one hour late.

Where We Are

Where We Are

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Lights strung along rooftops, wound around tree trunks and lampposts. Nets of lights on shrubs and hedges. Spotlights on wreathed front doors.

At the far end of my neighborhood is a house with a backyard that dips down into the woods. I never know where the yard ends and the woods begin. Except this time of year.

We light our lives to taunt the darkness. But along the way we outline them too.

The lights tell us where we are.