Chasing the light
Cheryl Unruh
Originally published 12:41 p.m., November 13, 2007
Updated 12:41 p.m., November 13, 2007
Once again, we’ve tricked the sun into rising an hour earlier.
Yes, we are the jugglers of time; we can reschedule the sun.
Well, actually, it’s not us little people who boss the sun around; light-shifting takes an act of Congress.
But, if not for the dramatic time change last week, some people wouldn’t even realize that darkness has crept into our lives.
A few minutes here and there we don’t notice, but when night lurches forward an hour, that gets our attention.
Last week, we replaced our smoke alarm batteries and rolled back our clocks to Central Standard Time. Now, night pours through our windows at 5:30 p.m.
Many people enjoy these cold months and the darkness and mysteries held within, for this is the cozy season.
This time of year, homes seem to have a fullness of aroma: coffee brewing, the fragrance of cornbread in the oven, maybe even beef stew simmering in a crockpot.
Many welcome the late autumn season because the night air carries the drift of wood smoke from neighbors’ chimneys. Some folks appreciate the killing frost that snuffs their allergies, or the fleet of honking geese overhead, or the crisp outline of stars.
And sometimes I let myself go that way too, surrendering to November, letting the darkness seep into my skin, allowing the night to take me over. I suppose that’s the best way to be, to ride with the seasons rather than fight them.
But living in the dark goes against my instinct: I am a light chaser.
And when the evenings were stolen by the dark last week, I did what came naturally: I bought another lamp, a floor lamp, to dispel the darkness.
I’m not afraid of the dark; I am a collector of light, a light freak. There are people who require chocolate, well, I need light. (Oh, and can I have some of that chocolate, too, please?)
I tend to fall in line with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe whose last words were: “Light, light, the world needs more light.”
Darkness seems to control the fall and winter seasons, but if light and dark were, say, arm wrestling, darkness would be hitting the table with a thud, because light is the stronger of the two powers. In the Kansas skies at night, the tiny, blinking lights on airplanes can be seen all the way from the ground.
And take the stars that hang in galaxies which are light-years away: one might think that the rays of those stars would be swallowed up by millions and millions of miles and the blackness of space, yet those distant stars are visible to us. Light wins again.
Sunlight is powerful, but it’s not always direct or intense. Daylight is in short supply for the next two or three months while our sun is sizzling over Brazil. We may be able to manipulate the sun’s hours, but we cannot force it to provide more light.
In the early afternoons when autumn’s shadows fall into my living room and the sunlight is as thin as skim milk, my thoughts turn to lamps and lights and 150-watt bulbs. I try to ward off the darkness.
I seldom turn on more than 11 at a time, but there are 17 light bulbs ready for use in my living room. If Kansas needs to build a new coal-fired plant to keep up with energy demands, I guess I’m the one to blame.
Anyway, behind my computer desk stands the new torchiere lamp which bounces 150 watts off the walls and the ceiling. The lamp stand also has a reading light, another 60 watts, which peeks over my shoulder.
It may be dark outside, but my living room shines like a summer day.
Because — it’s better to buy another lamp than to curse the darkness.
“Flyover People” is online at www.flyoverpeople.net.
• Cheryl Unruh can be reached at cheryl@flyoverpeople.net.