Holding On

Fall has arrived. It rode in on a heavy rain that pulled down twigs and leaves, littering the road with summer's excess. 

Truth to tell, the trees are tired. They have been hanging on to their foliage throughout this hot, dry summer. They're looking for an excuse to lay down their load. A heavy rain will do it, so will a brisk wind. 

They're preparing for the great un-leaving, still weeks away, but imminent. The equinox is here, and with it a lowering of the light. I want to hold onto as much of the light as I can. Don't we all?

An Appetizer

You'd think I would know what it was, but when I heard the pop last night in the car, my first thought was that it was coming from the radio. 

Instead, it was coming from the fireworks that were exploding off to my left, filling the night sky with light as I drove north toward home. 

I could only catch glimpses of the display, but they were a perfect appetizer for tonight's full-course meal.

Lovely, Dark and Deep

It's less than three weeks till summer solstice. By 5 a.m. the first birds are singing, and darkness doesn't fall till almost 9 p.m. At this time of year, light is our constant companion. 

Perhaps that's why the woods appeal. They are, to quote Robert Frost, "lovely, dark and deep." Though he described a winter landscape, mine is a summery one: oaks, maples and sycamore in full leaf, the path that winds through them sheltered and shady.

What mysteries lie down these trails? What refreshment will they bring? Will the woods be cooler than the street? These are questions I want to answer — and will. 

Golden Stroll

Back from a long drive, I take to the road. Not as a motorist but a pedestrian. I'm not often walking during the "golden hour," when the sun slants low and bathes the landscape in soft light, but I was yesterday, and I reveled in it.

I first learned of the golden hour traveling with photographers. While writers can ply their trade at any hour (observing, interviewing, soaking up the local color), photographers prefer mornings and evenings to snap their shots. I see why. The world looks better then, and so do the photographs.

I didn't intend to stroll during the golden hour yesterday; that was just the time available. But once I was walking through it I realized my good fortune. Here was beauty to soothe the nerves and still the mind. 

(The golden hour in Khulna, Bangladesh.)

Post Solstice

The shortest day was mostly cloudy. I took two walks, my first in a while. It felt good to be striding through space, cold enough that I wore gloves in the beginning. 

We've made it past the nadir and are now on the ascendancy. There's a direct line from today to June's long, lingering twilights. A fact to keep in mind during the early sunsets of January and February. 

Yesterday afternoon, I heard a springlike twittering in the air. It was a flock of robins who breezed in to hunt for worms and berries. Another sign that spring is out there somewhere. 

Mood Lighting

All day long they absorb the sun's rays, so by the time night falls they're ready to go. 

The new deck lights emit a spectral glow. Thanks to the cut-outs on their frame, the shadows they throw are squiggly and whimsical.

If you're looking for complete illumination, they're not the way to go. But if you're after mood lighting, a way to be in the darkness but not completely surrounded by it, they're just the ticket.

 

Springing Ahead?

Today is our first full day of astronomical spring, though the chilly morning temps make it feel more like winter. We in the mid-Atlantic have been spoiled this year, with snowdrops blooming in January and daffodils in February. It's been a non-winter. 

Now that we have late light, too, I feel a bit like Punxsutawney Phil, dragged out of his burrow only to dip back in because the sun's too bright. These late-light evenings, as much as they thrill, can seem like too much too soon. 

There's a part of me that still craves the lamplit afternoon, the cozy cocooning feel you have in winter, a pot of soup bubbling on the stove, no outside chores calling my name to add to the inside chores that are always with me. 

In other words, winter gives me a pass of sorts. And now ... that pass is over. 

Every Minute Counts

It's a cold, rainy morning days away from the winter solstice. But last week I heard a radio announcer explain that, at least when it comes to sunsets, we're already bouncing back. 

I just checked a daylight chart for Virginia ... and it's true. Starting last week we held steady with a 4:18 sunset, and last night, for the first time since midsummer, we added a minute to the evening end of the day. 

This tiny gain is still offset by the ever-later sunrises (7:51 this morning), but this time of year, every minute counts.

Wreathed in Fog

A soft fog last night as I drove to a meeting. A fog that made the lighted trees and homes send halo-like rainbows into the gloom. 

Our house is finally among the decorated, with candles in the windows and lights along the roof and a big old wreath that I bought as a splurge because it smells so much nicer than the artificial one — and also because it was made by Bradley's mother. 

That would be Bradley from Whitetop Mountain, Virginia, the same fellow we bought from last year. He apologized that the trees cost more this December and said he would "work with us" on the price. I bought the wreath to up the total. Bradley and his family could use it, I imagine. 

And now the wreath and the lights are shaking their fists at the darkness. In less than two weeks, the days start growing longer. 

Last-Minute Light

Yesterday was rainy and gray from start to almost finish. At 3 p.m. it was dark enough that I had to check the clock to be sure it wasn't 5. 

But only minutes from sunset, the clouds blew away and left a window for the light. It slanted in clear and bright and contained, more like the illumination from a half-shaded window than one thrown off by our nearest star. 

I've seen this phenomenon before, this last-minute light. Some days it feels like a reprieve, other days a cheat. But it's hard to complain when it leaves an afterglow like this.

Long-Day Season

The headline caught my eye just in time to save the page of newsprint from becoming part of the fire-starting equipment last week at the late.  "Darkness creeping in as long-day season ends," it said. 

Apparently Saturday, August 6 was the last day we'll have 14 hours of sunlight until May 2023. It was the end of what the article called the "brightness quarter," the 90 or so days of "solar beneficence and dazzle" we receive every May, June and July. 

It's also the end of long twilights and drawn-out dawns, of slower living made possible by humid air and looser schedules. You might even say it's the end of that feeling of limitlessness and possibility that summer brings. 

But that would be a gloomy thing to write on a spectacular late-summer morning, not in keeping with the bountiful daylight we still enjoy. 

Sunrise, Sunset

Time for another virtual vacation, this one to the banks of the Mekong River in Kampong Cham, Cambodia.

River of commerce and transportation, of fertility and growth. 

For me, though, it was a river of light — of sunrise and moon glow. 

The Prism

The prism is back, rescued from a dusty retreat on top of my dressing table, where it sat cupped and safe in an ornate candlestick since I moved it home at the start of the pandemic. 

That's no place for a prism to be, I told myself, so I brought it into this room I'm making my own and hung it from the shade roller so it dances in the window. 

I'd almost forgotten about it when I walked into the room this morning, tea mug in hand. But there they were again, those welcome rainbows brightening my wall. 

The Lights

Of all the rituals and practices of the season — the gifts, the tree, the wreath — one means more to me every year. It's the lights. 

It's the candles in the windows, the spotlights on the door. It's the stars on high and the luminaries down below. It's the icicles hanging from eaves and tree limbs wound with blues, reds and greens. 

It's these candles in the dark, because that's what all of them are: our puny fists raised together against the dying of the light. 

Three Layers

Three layers on today, plus wool socks and, at least for the moment, a hoodie over my head. It's been months since I put on this many sweaters. Must be November!

Life without seasons holds no appeal, would be flat and boring. But as daylight shrinks and cold winds blow, I feel a shiver that comes not just from the cold upstairs room where I write these days. It comes, too, from the knowledge of what awaits us.

The leaves that glitter golden now will soon fall, turn brown, need raking. The winds will shudder in from the west, bowing the bamboo and penetrating even the hardy siding.

Even though I try to live in the moment, to take each challenge as it comes, it's hard not to anticipate this perpetual, seasonal one, the dying of the light.

Steady and Clear

When I woke at 5:40, morning had begun. It was seeping in around the window shades and filling the room not with light but with something that wasn't darkness, either.  A vague shift of shadow, a sharper awareness of shapes.

I lay there a while, thinking it was still dark enough to sleep and that would also be a good way to start a Tuesday, also, perhaps better than jumping out of bed. But the morning won out. There was an insistence to it: Come on, get up. What are you waiting for?

Once downstairs, the morning fulfilled its promise, putting out a steady clear light from the east, which I stationed myself to watch by sitting in the big blue chair. It's been a light fest ever since, a treat we can continue to enjoy as days lengthen and expand. 

A long winter, an even longer year. The light is welcome. 

Light-Seeking

 

I feel like a winter plant, straining to soak up all the rays I can. I find the sunniest corner of the house, an upstairs bedroom perfectly positioned for the low winter star, and sit right where the rays hit the wall, propping myself up with pillows.

And speaking of plants, I've brought two of them up to this second-floor room. Like me they are leaning outward, just shy of contorting themselves, to soak up as much of the good stuff as possible. 

At nighttime, this room is illuminated, too. Turns out, the most brightly decorated cluster of houses in the neighborhood is best seen from this vantage point.  

To be here in the daytime is to be warmed; to be here after dark is to be comforted. 

Lit From Within

Walking after dark, which I'm increasingly more likely to do these days, gives me the chance to observe neighborhood houses lit from within. 

I see the glow of bedroom lamps behind drawn shades, the flicker of television screens in living rooms, the laser-like beam above a desk in front of a window. 

While some families draw every blind, others leave windows open for all to see — the fishbowl approach to living. I try to give everyone their privacy, but I can't help but notice the lights ... and the lives lived within them.

(The turkey teapot is out-of-season, but it's the best lamplight picture I can find right now.)

Light Show

There is sunlight this morning! It matters more these days, the weather I wake up with. It will be with me all day, as opposed to office days, when I enter a box of glass and steel and often don't leave it for nine hours.

But today the light pours into my house, and I know that in the morning it will come from the front of the house and in the afternoon from the rear. And as I sit here in the living room (one of my working spaces, being an office nomad of sorts these days) I can see both the front and back of the house in my peripheral vision.

It's as if I can see the morning and the afternoon rolled up into one. A preview of the light show that is mine every sunny day, as long as I pay attention to it.

Late Light

After a late light evening, a late dark morning. The drive I normally do in full daylight I did today in the gloaming, with the glow of an almost-full moon to guide me.

It's no matter. I've experienced this enough by now to expect the shift and roll with it. The missing hour of sleep is another issue. In my experience once you lose it you seldom get it back. The long catch-up snoozes do little to erase the deficit.

Nevertheless, I look forward to acclimating soon. I want to be awake and alert to enjoy the endless afternoons, the dusks that go on forever, the sense of possibility that late light can bring.