December dark
This December darkness sits on the city like a beautiful, brooding woman wearing a flowing, grey satin dress that is dropped to the ground. Under her dress is a layered white crinoline.
It is snowing, hesitantly, as if it doesn’t really want to. It’s 3:34 p.m., and depressingly dark. The sun was a no-show. AWOL. Gone behind grey. On the radio, a drive-home host doesn’t know when the Solstice is – she has no idea. “Don’t things turn around sometime in December?” she says. Seventeen days, I say to the radio. How does anybody get a job on the radio without knowing when the Solstice occurs?
On the 21st, the light starts to return. Thirty-four days to get to this exact same quality of light on the other side. When did light become so important? You were aware of the value of light when you put the Christmas lights up on the house last week – you erred on the side of too many, and in fact, went out and bought more. Because light is important. Not because of the birth a Saviour story. Because of light.
