Chasing the Light – radio version

This piece aired on Kansas Public Radio this morning (at 6:35) and will likely air again at 8:35.

You can listen to the archived version on the KPR website.

CHASING THE LIGHT

Once again, we’ve tricked the sun into rising an hour earlier.

Yes, we are the jugglers of time; we can reschedule the sun.

Well, actually, it’s not us little people who boss the sun around; light-shifting takes an act of Congress.

But if not for the dramatic time change recently, we might not have realized that darkness has crept into our lives.

A few minutes here and there we don’t notice, but when night lurches forward an entire hour, that gets our attention.

Yes, we’ve replaced our smoke alarm batteries and rolled back our clocks to Central Standard Time. Now, at 5:30 p.m., night pours through our windows.

Many Kansans enjoy these cold months and the darkness and mysteries held within; for them, this is the cozy season.

Some welcome November because the night air carries the drift of wood smoke from neighbors’ chimneys. There’s the fleet of honking geese overhead and the crisp outline of stars.

And sometimes I let myself go that way too, surrendering to November, letting the darkness seep into my skin, allowing the night to take me over. I suppose that’s the best way to be, to ride with the seasons rather than fight them.

But living in the dark goes against my blood: I am a light chaser.

And when the evenings were stolen by the dark, I did what came naturally: I bought another lamp, a floor lamp, to dispel the darkness.

Now, I’m not afraid of the dark; I am a collector of light, a light freak. There are people who require chocolate, well, I need light.

I tend to fall in line with German philosopher Goethe whose last words were: “More light!”

Darkness seems to control the fall and winter seasons, but if light and dark were, say, arm wrestling, darkness would hit the table with a thud, because light is the stronger of the two powers.

In the Kansas skies at night, the tiny, blinking lights on airplanes can be seen all the way from the ground.

And take the stars that hang in galaxies light-years away – one might think that the rays of those stars would be swallowed up by millions and millions of miles and the blackness of space, yet those distant stars are visible to us. Light wins again.

Sunlight is powerful, but it’s not always direct or intense. Daylight is in short supply for the next few months while our sun sizzles over Brazil. We may be able to manipulate the sun’s hours, but we cannot force it to provide more light.

In the early afternoons when autumn’s shadows fall into my house and the sunlight is as thin as skim milk, my thoughts turn to lamps and lights and 150-watt bulbs.

Now I seldom turn on more than 11 at a time, but there are 17 light bulbs ready for use in my living room. If Kansas needs to build a new coal-fired plant to keep up with energy demands, you can blame me.

Anyway, behind my computer desk stands the new torchiere lamp which bounces one hundred and fifty watts off the walls and the ceiling.

It may be dark outside, but my living room shines like a summer day.

Because — it’s better to buy another lamp than to curse the darkness.

Copyright 2008 – Cheryl Unruh