It’s one of those days. Nights. Evenings. I sit in my living room alone, lights off, taking in the reality of the light dimming from outside of the window. The sun-washed room once held heat in the carpet where I lie, but now it is cold, as I will soon be. Soon, I will have to move, and retire upstairs for the night. But it is not yet night, so I stay here and neutrally watch the sky darken.
It is a slow process, and every night I challenged myself to focus on the color, the experience. I challenge myself to stay vigorously attentive to the gradual shifting of blue into black, but I usually do not make it. No, I do not fall asleep, but I fall into thought-which is just about as unconscious as sleeping.
My mind muddles and I often begin to think about one thing or another, happenstance after happenstance, wild possibility after wild possibility. But sometimes, just every once in awhile, I can find myself focused, taking note on the way that the sky is not bright, but glowing, as the sun goes down. With no harsh, direct, bright light hogging up the sky, I can appreciate the timid blue that glows like a dome over my surroundings; I can take in the soft, subtle lessening of brightness, but not of light.
The light never really leaves the sky, when you think about it. Whenever I am able to think about it, I do so, because I think it a proper explanation of many things within the world. I see it an example of consistency, a proof that nothing in this world ever truly comes to a full stop. For when the sun leaves the sky, it does not do so quickly, and it does not do so without waiting for the moon to take up it’s job of providing some glow to the world. Even as the light slows, it does not disappear.
And perhaps, some days, the moon gets ever so tired, and the sky may worry that all of the light is going to skip out for the day and bathe the world in heavy darkness. Not so, for when the moon has fallen, the stars come out, and they amount to little by themselves though they are strong in the company of one another. To make a difference, to shout over the darkness, the stars as individuals come together to work for a cause. I think that a natural thing, a beautiful thing.
And there are days in which the dark may succeed, and (excuse me for the pun) steal away the spotlight. The clouds may aid in the overthrow of light, and everything may be still for a moment. And in that stillness we are reminded that the world will not accommodate us at every whim, that sometimes we must create our own light if we are to stay up a bit longer.
Nonetheless, sooner or later, the light will return. I think this, as well, as beautiful thing. There is nothing so rewarding as the slow return of light, and nothing so sobering as the slow approaching of darkness.
While the darkness approaches slowly, it arrives quickly, almost as if it is trying to surprise you. Oh, how often it surprises me as I get lost in my daydreams and suddenly find them to be regular dreams of the night. Oh, how often will I begin watching the sky only to drift away a moment and then realize that it has become something entirely new. Everything changes, over again and again, but as for the things we love, we will always see them again, often sooner than we believe.
I will be the first to say that I am a haphazard believer in spontaneity. I hardly enjoy waiting for a process to work out, and I covet the automatic as much as I do knowledge that has already been created. Even still, I appreciate slowness occasionally; I appreciate the kind of slowness that is so calming and so thought-provoking that I can find myself getting wholly lost in the process before I realize that it has ended.577Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ50891UDkXw
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So, just as I do most nights, I end this night with a sigh, and watch the sky darken. It has so become one of my favorite pastimes.
