In Darkness and Quiet.

I need to put in a good word here for...darkness.

For clouds.

For overcast, even for fog and rain sometimes.

And for early dusk. Long, lovely nights. And deep, unbroken quiet.

Shortly, we'll be heading into the springing-forward madness of clock adjustment that is Daylight Saving Time, something that I probably liked as a kid...but which I no longer like as an adult.

There are many reasons for this, the biggest one being that--of course--there's no reason for it anymore.

No. Really.

My understanding was that originally, it was meant to "extend daylight" for farmers. So they had extra hours of sunshine in the fields when they were working sunup to sundown, and thus could get extra tasks done at what would normally have been a darker time of day.

But frankly, I don't even know if that's actually true.

Before we lived in the Promised Land of the Eastern Time Zone, my son went to school in it--at Michigan. And he used to tell us, come springtime, how late into the evening it was "still light out." Like, 10 PM.

I have to admit, I thought he might have been exaggerating a tiny bit.

Until I saw it for myself.

If you live in the Eastern Time Zone in the springtime, when DST happens...

...suddenly, you're going to bed in full daylight.

No,  I don't mean "light" like "Land of the Midnight Sun" Alaska "perpetual dusk."

I mean the sun is still above the horizon when you're heading to bed.

This makes precious little to no sense for schoolkids, if they're young enough that they need a decently early bedtime to get enough sleep for school the next day. But it's equally nonsensical for those of us who weren't in school, but who got up frightfully early to go to work in the morning.

If you're getting up at 5:30 or 6 AM, you need to have a reasonable bedtime. Like, 9:30 or 10:00. 

But at 9:30, it's barely sunset yet.

And if you've had a rough day and you're thinking of turning in early?

Better hope you have room-darkening shades.

Fourth of July fireworks displays, in the Eastern time zone, don't take place in full darkness, like they can pretty much anywhere else; full darkness doesn't hit until 10:30 PM, when most shows elsewhere are finishing. So all your "dusk" fireworks shows happen when the sky really isn't dark enough yet to show them off. And that's only one of the aspects of this silly time-adjustment thing that I find irritating.

What I have to wonder, even more so as I get older, is what the obsession is with sunlight.

And why so many people seem to hinge their mental health on it.

It's said that when Chopin was a boy, he would play piano in the dark; he would deliberately blow out the candles, and then sit down to play. Which may be why his music is some of the most evocative, touching, and soul-stirring stuff you can experience. (Play it in the dark sometime. I dare you. And have the tissues handy.)

In today's culture, those of us who prefer clouds, who enjoy "softer" light and earlier evenings, are looked at askance. Sometimes people out-and-out ask what's "wrong" with us.

But maybe the problem isn't in our preference for darkness.

Maybe it's in the obsession with bright light, long days, and never-ending activity that stretching the sunlight beyond bedtime seems to encourage in so many people...

...the same people who complain about "how tough it is to disconnect" or how "overwhelmed" they feel by "everything happening everywhere all at once."

I would submit that those of us who aren't afraid of a few shadows could--no pun intended--"enlighten" those people a bit about the need for greater balance. Daylight...and evening. Bright...and dark.

The question is, would our inquisitive audience be willing to "unhook" from sunshine, bright lights, and perpetual busyness long enough to appreciate what can happen on the other side.

That some truly deep thinking, some truly profound creativity, can happen in subdued illumination.

That some incredibly beautiful work can, in fact, be done...in darkness and quiet.

I love the long winter night. The stillness of a world not incessantly in full-tilt "carnival" mode.

I live for the day more people "come out of the closets" of enjoying those kinds of nights--and more subtly lighted days, too.

And of appreciating the largely unplumbed depths of times of silence and shadow.

Could you?

Janny