A
few months ago, I would wander into the living room and sit down.
It was early June, and at 7pm daylight still poured into the house.
Here
we are, nearing the end of August, and while it’s still light
enough outside at 7, the sun is setting earlier, and the living
room isn’t quite as well-lit when I stroll in. But habits are
habits, and I usually have collapsed into a chair for the evening
before I realize I should have turned on a light.
About
six years ago, on one of the first days of July, I was driving
on the highway to meet up with my wife. Long drive. Started well
before 5pm. Arrival would be around 10. It was well after 9 before
I turned on the headlights of my car. And I didn’t turn them on
because they were needed. In fact, the vast majority of the cars
on the road had their lights off as well. Skies were clear, visibility
great, lighting good. Instead, I glanced at the dashboard and
saw it was approaching 9:30, and for some reason it just kind
of clicked that I should turn on my headlights.
At
some point in late December, the road outside my house will be
in complete darkness by 5pm. As in, get the headlights on around
3:30 if you don’t have them on already, because the sun is fading
and the sky is gray and the world is gloomy and you need your
headlights on now.
Daylight
savings my behind… that’s a dramatic four-hour shift of massive
levels. A bright and clear July evening as opposed to an overcast
and all colors drained from the world around you December afternoon.
Somewhere
out there are people that can tell us all about the sun and our
planet and rotations and angles and more. They know about light.
There are reasons for changes.
For
me, it’s more basic. In the summer, it’s light out long before
I wake up and sometimes when I go to bed. In the winter, there
are days—often stretches of multiple days—when thanks to work
I wouldn’t even know if anything even resembling daylight had
made an appearance even though I was outside at different times.
I
grew up in a neighborhood where the world revolved not around
the clocks on kitchen stoves, but the sun. You were supposed to
head home when the streetlights came on. The lights had a sensor
that triggered when it was getting dark. Hide and go seek and
ghost in the graveyard and kickball and more never ended at 9.
Meetings were not quickly convened for kids to plead for summer
sleepovers at 8. The clock was the streetlight.
When
you’re growing up, and the end of your day is based on the streetlights
turning on, the reality is that watches lose a bit of meaning.
The
changes are subtle though. If you’re mowing the lawn or watering
the garden after dinner, and start roughly around the same time,
the differences between one week and the next aren’t all that
apparent.
My
parents raise and lower and open and close the curtains and blinds
and shades in their house. It’s a bit of a ritual. Mom loves fresh
air and sunshine. So, there’s a morning run to open the house
to the world, and an evening run to close up.
When
we go to visit, the realities of this can be kind of funny. Wake
up and head to take a shower, come back to the guest room… formerly
my bedroom, which is another batch of stories… to find that the
shades have been raised and windows opened.
We
don’t get out to visit as often as we’d like. That means there’s
usually a few weeks, if not a month or more, between days spent
in the house. And with that, the light show becomes slightly different
every time.
I
had lots of stuff planned for this wandering around. I was debating
the differences between an early winter sunset making hot chocolate
really appealing and summer evenings being perfect for frozen
beverages. But my mind keeps wandering back to streetlights acting
as clocks, and the idea that maybe I should go turn on a table
lamp in the living room now while I’m thinking about it. I’m also
tempted to tell you the stories of parents opening front doors
and calling out to the neighborhood streets for the kids to come
home. Those can wait.
Often,
I nod in the direction of getting just one more summer off the
way I did when I was younger. It will never happen. Not because
I couldn’t enjoy a game of ghost in the graveyard or hitting a
tennis ball until thirty minutes or more beyond it being too dark
to see the ball. But it will never happen because the gathering
will never be the same crew of kids, under the same streetlights.
The
best I have is measuring my mornings and evenings based on when
I don’t need assistance in seeing how to move around. And for
now, while it’s not quite the same as throwing on a sweatshirt
and trying to make s’mores while the fireflies appear, I do need
to get outside and put some things into the shed. It’ll be dark
soon, which we all know is the real end of the day.