Time, Changes

Every autumn when we have to set our clocks back, I experience a small-scale and short-lived depression prompted by being thrown back into darkness for the first hour of the day.

That darkened room is something of a shock when only yesterday I greeted the dawn alone with my coffee at the same clock time—despite knowing the phenomenon is only an artefact of convention.

But after a few days something changes — I start to look forward to that darkness, even when I am settling into sleep the night before. I look forward to the bubble of light cast by my notebook computer — a light that makes a cloister in which I find comfort — comfort swaddled in the velvety-darkness just beyond.

I still love light and I covet any opportunity to experience a bright sunlit room that happens with less frequency during the months of winter—a light that gives the room fullness even when I am the only one present— but for that first hour before anyone else in the house stirs awake, the darkness is my calm and silent partner.

Coffee even seems to smell and taste better with this partner, and I know I will be saddened to lose it in the spring — at least for a few days.