Bookended in Darkness
The southern Taurids are a true test of a sky-gazer’s patience, promising fireball spectacles in an inky black autumn sky but…only one or two in five hours, and that’s if you’re looking in the right direction. With a promise from all the Experts that this celestial show would peak on November 5 around 8:47p.m., we had nothing to lose by stepping onto the front deck after dinner (no telescope or binoculars, just sharp, hungry eyes raking the heavens). Meteor shower dress code: light jackets, ball caps and something to cover the feet (we chose slippers). Patrick was struggling a bit with end-of-the-day back pain; I didn’t expect we’d stay out there long.
Our necks in craning position toward the eastern sky, we stood close to each other against the evening’s early chill, my arm around Patrick’s waist to hold him steady. The moon wasn’t due to rise for another four hours. The sky was ours, save for the faint glow of the Duke gas station four miles up the road, anticipation keeping our minds off how cold it really was. Then, soundlessly above our heads at the exact moment we both shifted our gaze an inch to the right, there it was—a long-tailed shimmering streak slicing through infinite darkness, leaving no evidence that it had even appeared at all. In less than five minutes, we got what we came for. My arm still around Patrick’s waist, we moved as one across the dampening grass, up the front steps and back into the warmth, trusting that the show would go on merrily without us (as I’m sure it does most nights). Dear Diary, our first Taurids meteor shower checked off the list.
We are trudging reluctantly forward into the season of minimal light. In the record books for all time, November 19th, 2023 will have known only 9 hours and 31 minutes of sun before the night sky gulps down that last morsel of soul-nourishing illumination, and I’ll try for all the world not to head upstairs to bed at 5:30. I’ll stop longing for summer sunsets well past 9:00pm and (eventually) happily accept the coziness of a kitchen warmly lit with an overhead fixture and an antique lamp atop the tea cabinet, dinner bubbling reassuringly on the stove. Slippers and quilts will be within arm’s reach and I’ll bake more than I usually do, freezing the surplus. Coyotes will come closer to the house, singing through the meadow beneath the sycamores where the saw-whet owls call back and forth to each other in breathy whistling cadence. Every season requires an adjustment period and I’m up for it, truly, but the move from summer through fall takes a bit longer than I’m ever prepared to embrace. Even so, I wrap myself willingly in the long darkness that bookends my days, packing all that I can into that narrow sliver of light we get in shrinking increments until winter’s solstice. What’s left in the garden to tuck in for the approaching winter? Where on the land haven’t I walked yet? Is there enough time to tidy up the woodpile by the sweat lodge before locking up the chickens for the night? I get some of it done and make a promise to the land that tomorrow’s another day, if that sun comes up again (no guarantees, just hope and gratitude). Last Sunday was the last time I expect to cut the grass before spring and I lingered over the six or so acres we keep trim, jostled by patches made bumpy by our industrious and hidden mole neighbors, the mower spitting out a stray black walnut now and then. A squirrel in the branches of the mulberry tree to my right saw where it landed, I swear, and made note of it.
I know that day and night each have their gifts and their glory, and neither is without its respective challenges to a modern lifestyle that insists on less romantic ways to mark and pass the time (I find no comfort in the blue or red digital display of a nightstand clock and so, don’t have one. I barely tolerate the round wall clock in the kitchen with its time-honored Hindu-Arabic numbers telling me to get a move on). Living in the land’s rhythm, we try to follow her lead most days, to the point where we check the weather apps on our phones less frequently to see what we need to wear for the day. It’s enough to open the door, take a deep breath and dress in layers. For as long as it keeps working, we’ll stick to that practice, envying our hibernating relatives who get to sleep in their furry pajamas for months with no one calling them lazy. They trust that spring will come, in infinitesimal increments of light, and we’d do well to mimic them.
Until then, the night sky will keep beckoning us outside to stand in her chilly air, our feet on the damp grass, our heads tilted back in wonder and humility. When the sun comes up again, we’ll be glad we did.
