Dark Days

It's truly stunning how much of the day is dark this time of year.  I never used to notice.  Even if the sky didn't get light until seven thirty or eight, my first classes weren't until eight at the earliest.  Then, between classes, I'd get to walk outside, probably resenting the cold air.  If I had an extra hour, I would go study somewhere with window where I could watch the grey sky or the snow.  Perhaps I would lament the dreary weather, but I would always know what the weather was.

Now, I am walled away much more securely from the outside world.  This morning I got to school just as the eastern sky was lightening and the mountains were outlined with the pale colors that mark the early stage of a winter sunrise.  I walked through the big glass doors and through the foyer drenched with morning light from the giant skylights, took a right, went up the stairs, took a left, a right, a left, and then another left to my classroom.  All those stairs and turns serve to make sure that not one bit of daylight from those glass doors or skylights will ever reach my eyes unless I'm headed to the copy room.  My students come in saying things like, "It's raining!" or "Miss E! Did you see the snow?"  And all I can do is be jealous.  Their feet trail wet leaves from an outside world I sometimes forget exists outside the contained box of my classroom.  The temperature in my room has little connection to the larger world.  If my room is cold or if it's warm have very little to do with if it's cold or hot outside.  On cold days it's slightly warmer in my room because they turn off air conditioning and stop the fans pumping in outside air.

When school gets out, I don't leave before 3:30 or 4:00 (contract time).  By then, the day's strongest rays are gone, and I only have a few precious hours of any daylight whatsoever.  This makes my half an hour drive home one of my favorite part of the day.  There I am, driving along and surrounded by windows which let me see outside in nearly all directions!  It's fantastic.  Then, when I get home, there's only an hour or so left before the long stretch of evening.

Now I'm not trying to complain, I do enough of that already.  I do play outside when I can, and when I get home from school I make sure the shutters of my apartment are wide open to let in the fading light.  When I'm feeling particularly the darkness of the world around me, I have one of those natural light lamps my mother got for me last year.  It doesn't really get me down, this dimness, I just don't know how to express how very dark it is these days.  The idea that it will continue to get darker, that in a few days the eastern sky will not even be visible when I get to school and head indoors and that there will be even less light when I emerge, seems dizzying.  On weekends, when I'm in my apartment, or out and around in the wide world during daylight hours I normally spend in my classroom, I'm always surprised by how very bright it is outside.  I never see sunlight that bright except on those precious weekend days.

Thank heaven there's only a few more weeks of school.  The weeks before and just after the solstice, the darkest and dimmest of the year, are part of my Christmas break.  That means I'll get to see sunlight those days, and by the time I get back to school, it will be no worse than it will be the next week or so. After that, the world will gradually lighten for me, growing brighter and brighter through the long months of winter and spring, until I arrive at school to a glorious full sunrise and leave in the merry afternoon light.  Finally, when summer vacation comes, I will surrender completely to my newly found sun worship, soaking in the double freedom of no school and nearly endless day.

So bring on the next few weeks of increased darkness.  I will grit my teeth, stare at the merry lights on my Christmas tree, and say to the blackness just outside my windows, "All hail The Sun!"