Fading of the Light

Now the day is over,
Night is drawing nigh
Shadows of the evening
Steal across the sky.


I recently heard a reference on Jean Feraca’s popular radio show “Here on Earth”, to an old Scandinavian habit of sitting silently outside until dusk turned to night. Usually the whole family sat together for a half hour or so—although now only practiced by older people. It intrigued me and I have been doing it myself for the past three weeks as my schedule permits.

I get into my perch i.e. a comfortable lounge chair on the deck, wrapped in an afghan and jacket and if it is cold, a cap. From here I can look thru the canopy of tree crowns to the road and meadow at the foot of my long driveway and then over the tops of the next woods to sparkling Lake Superior. My cue to “assume the position” is when the solar lights come on along the driveway. How long I stay out depends on wind and weather but I need at least a half hour to truly relax body, mind and spirit.

And lately I have remembered long summer evenings in my childhood—playing games with the other kids on the block—hopscotch, hide-and-seek, Red Rover, Captain may I, until the light got too dark for us to play. Meanwhile—in those years before folk became chained to the television—the elders—parents and grandparents often sat out on porches—sometimes talking but often sitting in silence until the mosquitoes or dampness drove them in. I recalled my aunt and uncle who lived in the lower flat sitting on the porch thus. If the Milwaukee Braves were playing my Uncle Ed would put the radio in front of the open window, then sit outside listening to the game.

And now I sit watching the light fade into night, drinking in the change with all my senses, watching the first star play peek-a-boo with the young aspen leaves and regaining something very precious that had been lost.