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Category: night

Labyrinth

Labyrinth

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Last night the pavement unfurled like a gift. It caught my feet and led me through the dark. It gave me room to breathe.

Earlier in the evening, October fireflies crawled up from the ground, blinking as yellow as the road marks I wrote about yesterday. If the fireflies could do it, so could I.

So I donned a headlamp and reflective vest and took off down the newly lined road.

The air was cool on my arms; it had the weight of summer air. It buoyed me as I strode past lamplit houses. It calmed me with its passage.

Last night, the road was my labyrinth.

Fear and Trembling

Fear and Trembling

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The rain has stopped and the crickets are singing. A crescent moon winks between the trees. I’ve just lured Copper up from the basement, his sometime home this rainy summer. He spent the night in a thunder shirt, which keeps his trembling at bay.

Watching his fear of rain and storms intensify with age has taught me a thing or two about fear, about the way it takes a body over and will not let it go.

Easy enough to say, “Don’t worry, little guy. Nothing’s going to hurt you.” But harder to prove, and he knows it.

I keep all this in mind for my middle-of-the-night wakings, tell myself what I tell him. I don’t believe it, either.

Seeing Stars

Seeing Stars

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It was warmer this morning than the last few days, high 40s. Reason to pull on tights, sweatshirt and reflective vest, grab the flashlight and take a pre-dawn walk.

The crescent moon was out, the one that lets you see a faint image of the rest of the orb, like an eyeball pulsing beneath an almost-closed lid.

But that’s not what caught my attention. It was the stars.

I noticed them on the return, when I felt comfortable enough in the dark to look up. And there they were, so far away, so bright, so essential. I took a mental snapshot, have them with me now in the fluorescent-lit office, where I’ve found a quiet, unlit corner to write these words, to try and see stars again.

(Photo: Wikipedia)

Summer Serenade

Summer Serenade

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Thunderstorms cleared the air late yesterday and made way for … a frog chorus.  The little guys chirped and sang and puffed their throats out in that way they do. They’re looking for love, of course. Aren’t we all?

But instead of hitting the clubs and trying some corny lines, these guys were serenading their ladies in style. Bright sounds in the big night. A crooning, haunting symphony of sound — the voice of summer, perfect accompaniment to the glimmer of fireflies. They were singing to their own, but their cries soothed the soul of this suburbanite.

Because when I heard them call from creeks and puddles and the undersides of leaves, I felt part of a much larger, elemental world. That these creatures — just tadpoles a few weeks ago, little more than eggs with legs — could now be filling the night with their song seemed more than a little miraculous. It was a perfect way to end the day — with a summer serenade.

(Wikipedia)

Anatomy of a Headache

Anatomy of a Headache

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I am, unfortunately, headache-prone. I’ve learned to live with the dull aches and the sharp pains, with the early awakenings and the late nights. I don’t glorify these as migraines, but they can hang around for days. Sometimes they respond to ibuprofen and sometimes they don’t.

It’s a point of pride that I don’t give in to these headaches — but today I was wondering what it would be like if I did. Would I be one of those neurasthenic Victorian ladies, perfumed handkerchief and rose water, dabbing at my temples and wrists? Would I lie in a darkened room while someone (a Downton-Abbey-style ladies maid) brought me a cup of tea?

Not my style. But that doesn’t stop me from analyzing the headache, especially the one I have right now. Unlike the more typical vague throbbing, this one announced itself with a stab of pain between the eyes. I can pinpoint its arrival almost to the minute. It began sometime between 6:50 and 6:55 a.m., while turning right from Vale to Hunter Mill Road on my way to Metro and the office. One moment I didn’t have a headache, and the next moment I did.

Now I’m imagining another scenario: that the headache skedaddle as quickly as it came. I can almost feel it now: the pressure will vanish, the tightness will disappear. Ah, yes, I’m feeling better already.

Burrowing

Burrowing

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I’d like to say the thunder woke me up, but I was already awake and reading when I heard the first clap. But it did jolt me, and, more to the point, it upset Copper so that he scratched on the door to be comforted.

I escorted him to the basement, his place of safety — though if he only knew how many precariously stacked books and boxes are down there he might seek higher ground.

But burrowing and sheltering have their appeal. I thought about this over the weekend when I draped a comforter over some chairs on the deck to air it out and was immediately reminded of the blanket forts my brother and I made when we were young.

How cozy they were, how beguiling, as if no one would ever find us, as if (it seems to me now), we would never grow up.

Darkness Into Day

Darkness Into Day

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Took a pre-dawn walk the other day, so I started with a flashlight, swinging with my stride. A visual metronome, light marker. Its circle of light is paltry, just enough to see the way. But it flows with me, and is comforting.

All around are the sounds of nighttime, crickets chirping. A bat flits through the sky. I think nighttime thoughts, am tuned to every forest sound.

By the time I round the corner toward home, though, I no longer need the flashlight. Without knowing it I’ve been walking from darkness into day.

Bird Cloud

Bird Cloud

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It was not the best idea to pick up Annie Proulx’s Bird Cloud last night when I couldn’t sleep. I thought it would lull me back to dreams, much as it had the evening before.

But not this time. Last night I was farther along in Proulx’s Wyoming house-building saga. I wanted to know what would happen to the concrete floor that was poorly poured — and the color of liver. I wanted to understand how she could have spent most of her (considerable) income on a place that turned out to be uninhabitable from October till May due to wind and snow-packed roads.

I still haven’t gotten a satisfying answer to the last question (though it made me feel good that someone so accomplished could also be so gulled.) As to the first — well, I know she found a floor fixer who gave up his Thanksgiving (for a mere $40,000!) to sand, polish and stain her floor to a dull, serviceable brown.

Along the way, I read lines like this:  “Bird Cloud was to be a type of poem if a house can be that. After Bird Cloud was finished I knew it was a poem of landscape, architecture and fine craftsmanship…”

Nearly Dark

Nearly Dark

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A walk after dinner last night, nearly dark.  Bats dart between shadowy trees. A deer munches leaves at the house on the corner. When he sees me he stands still as as a statue. Next door is a little fountain, which makes a pleasant, splashing sound as I get close to home.

I try to figure out which neighbors are on vacation by the placement and pattern of their indoor lights. Then I start to think about the neighbors themselves, their triumphs and their tragedies.

There are a couple of ministers in the neighborhood, one of whom is a friend. He walks his dog late at night, and I’ve often wondered if he blesses the houses as walks by. Or at least offers up a silent prayer.

And that’s what I found myself doing. Not blessing or praying so much as holding these people in my mind as I walked by. Thinking about the woman who lost her husband more than 20 years ago, when her boys were still in elementary and middle school; about the man who had knee replacement last year; about the woman I never see anymore and how ill she looked the last time we said hello.

And these, of course, are just a small sampling of the humanity here. Who knows what stories these houses hold, these peaceful suburban houses.

Moon Garden

Moon Garden

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A colleague asked if I’d heard of moon gardens — and now I can’t stop thinking about them.

I imagine a balmy night, slight breeze, whiff of honeysuckle. A full moon rising. White plants overlooked in the daytime shine out in the darkness: dusty miller, sweet alyssum, night phlox.

And then there are flowers that only bloom at night: moon flower,  four o’clocks, evening primrose.

Some plants are more fragrant in the evening:  flowering tobacco, pinks, night gladiolus.

Or maybe it is that we, the tired gardeners, are more open to their scent.