IMG_1256At five o’clock this evening, I had stepped out of Aldi’s to wait for the bus to take me to campus, and then I looked up into the sky. Actually, I didn’t have to look up into the sky because everywhere around me already showed what had given me the kind of unexpected dread: it was very dark. It was not just an evening dark, but a  pitch black appearance of night. I looked at my watch, and it was still five o’clock. For a moment, I thought that my watch had stopped, I had missed the bus, and I was stranded again in town, especially since everyone seemed to observe me with some kind of suppressed amusement as I stood at the bus stop. Actually, they were not looking at me. I have now classed it with the same standard response of momentary notice that I get every time I find myself standing in a public place, especially alone, and carrying two bags of groceries.

The point of this post however is to lament this strange darkening which I have heard about and have come to expect as a consequence of the new season of shorter daylight. I have not however been able to wrap my head around it. Whenever day begins to start one hour late, and nightfall then begins at five in the evening, it comes with a certain nervousness for which I’m not prepared. Oh, where is the comforting bosom?