Happy Fall, Y’all!
As many of you know, my wife, Wendy is also a writer. She’s a poet who is challenging herself to delve into prose with her Substack newsletter, Furrow and Fire. I encourage you to check out her posts. She’s a wonderful writer that infuses all she writes with her poetic sensibilities.
This week, we both decided to write about embracing darkness, an appropriate theme for this time of year. I thought you might enjoy reading her reflections as well as mine. We even quoted the same Paul Simon song. Bet you can guess which one!
Here’s Wendy’s post:
And here’s mine.
Hello, Darkness, My Old Friend
Visiting Alaska this summer taught me to appreciate the night in a way I never had before. That’s because it didn’t get dark. Not really. The sun would slip behind the horizon but, even at 2 in the morning, it would feel more like perpetual dusk. I know that because I looked. In Anchorage, when I got up in the middle of the night to make a bathroom run, I peeked out the window from behind the blackout shades. In Denali, Wendy and I started a two-hour hike at 9:30 pm.
In Talkeetna, I convinced Wendy to take a walk around town at 12:30 am—just to bathe in perpetual light.
Russians call this phenomenon Belye Nochi, or White Nights, when the sun lingers near the horizon through late spring and early summer, leaving the nights washed in twilight instead of darkness.
But what surprised me most, wandering through that endless twilight, was how much I missed darkness. I missed the relief I feel when I step outside into a dark night—relief from visual stimuli, harsh sunlight, and the heat of a summer’s day. Darkness offers a pause between days that includes both a sense of safety and mystery signaling us to rest, reflect, and dream. Until the Alaska trip, I didn’t know how much I hungered for that.
As I write this, except for a few places that don’t embrace Daylight Savings time, most of America has slipped back into standard time. Tonight, darkness will settle in by 5:30 or so here in Virginia, and each day until the winter solstice on December 21, mornings will brighten a little later and evenings darken a little sooner. We’ll lose nearly two minutes of daylight each day until the Earth’s steady orbit turns the Northern Hemisphere back toward the sun again. That’s a day I look forward to every year.
Maybe after my time in Alaska, though, I’ll come to cherish this season of darkness in a whole new way. I already love walking beneath a full moon, when the trees shimmer in silver light and the path ahead glows just enough to guide me forward. I love scouting for nocturnal creatures slipping from their hidden shelters, drawn by hunger or curiosity, into the soft mystery of the night. And I love the way a cool breeze brushes my skin, offering gentle relief from the heavy breath of a Virginia summer.
After experiencing several weeks of endless light, I’ve come to see that darkness, too, is part of the Earth’s rhythm—a necessary counterbalance, reminding us that rest and renewal require their own kind of illumination. In that rhythm, I find a quiet lesson about balance, about learning to welcome both the brilliance that reveals and the shadow that restores.
Wanting to honor my newfound appreciation for darkness, I looked for a way to celebrate it back home. That’s why I surprised my wife Wendy by offering to decorate for Halloween this year. She was elated at the prospect, as Halloween is one of her favorite holidays. We kept it simple, just a few witches in our yard and spider webs on our door, but it was enough to bring us into the spirit.
I even donned a witch costume and cast my own shadow on the earth. Spooky!
But light and dark don’t stay in perfect balance for long. Even though the light slowly returns by January and February, it’s then that I have to guard myself against the pull of seasonal depression. The short, cold, colorless days can close in around me like the long shadow of winter itself.
Last February, I escaped to St. Petersburg, Florida, imagining sunny afternoons outdoors with good friends—shedding winter layers, breathing in semi-tropical air, and taking slow walks with my camera to capture birds and other creatures, who like me are drawn to the sun. But the weather had other plans. When I later noticed that all the photos I took were of what we ate and drank, I had to laugh. So much for my search for warmth and light. Still, maybe that’s the lesson winter keeps offering—that light isn’t always something to find outside ourselves, but something we learn to kindle within.
I know I have work to do to embrace winter in all its forms. Almost twenty years ago, I moved back to the South from Michigan, so I no longer had to, in the words of an old friend, “shovel my weather.” And yes, it’s much warmer here in south-central Virginia than it ever was in Traverse City, when those winter winds came howling off Lake Michigan and straight through me.
But I still shiver when the temperature gets much below 60 degrees, and that adds to my distaste for the winter months. I’m hopeful that by embracing the darkness, I’ll find ways to stay warm, reflective, and joy-filled this winter. That’s my plan, anyway. I’ll let you know how it goes.
One more thought. Do you think it’s cheating on my commitment to embrace winter if I just scheduled a February trip to Puerto Rico for Carnaval Ponceño? I’m interested in your opinions!