Why I Love the Dark

1. The Big Secret. Out here in the country, we don’t have streetlights, and there’s rarely traffic after 8 p.m. So when I’m up late at night, and Ray and the dogs are softly snoring, I am the only human on the planet listening to the call of these frogs, owls and coyotes. Or watching a grey blur, which must be Snowball, slinking low to the ground toward the barn. Or smelling the plum blossoms on the night wind. Or hearing the peacocks flutter in the Tree, their communal roost. Or feeling the subtle shift and groan of the house or the earth. It reminds me of the childhood taunt, I know something you don’t know, except we all know I’m way too mature for that.

2. Stillness. Okay, I can’t believe I’m quoting Bruce Lee, who said, “Only when there is stillness in movement does the universal rhythm manifest.” In the still dark, the illusion falls away, and I get a glimpse, briefly, of the peaceful real world.

3. Magic. The strange elixir of darkness sometimes gives me a drop or two of youth, enabling me to stay up past 10 p.m. It sometimes makes me howl at the moon. It sometimes makes me dance in the pasture in my nightgown. Boy howdy, if I could bottle this stuff, I could quit my job and open my fantasy yarn/coffee/pastry shop…

4. Night-blooming Cereus. Peniocereus greggii. Queen of the Night. About 25 years ago, my grandma carried home from Georgia on a plane a tiny cutting of this desert cactus relative for me. The cereus is now about 7 feet tall. Every once in while in June or July, it blesses us with a blossom or two. The milky-white flowers, which can be 6-8” across, start to open around 10 p.m. We can literally watch them tremble and open. The subtle sweet perfume is hypnotic. Whenever it blooms, I want to call the neighbors, make popcorn, install theatre seating, charge admission. By midnight the bloom is fully open, and by dawn it’s closed and dropping off. One night. That’s it. Only in the dark, only if we’re paying attention. I have foisted cuttings, rare & precious gifts, on many people over the years, but the plant itself is so homely and spindly—Mom calls it the “ugly plant”—that they often look at me askew. You wait, I say. You just wait.

5. Rest. I don’t mean sleep. I mean that in the dead of night, I don’t clean house, pull weeds, do laundry, answer the phone, check my email, etc. The deepest darkness is my permission to simply watch, listen, think, breathe, be.