The only thing worse than the inexorable march of time is the people who feel compelled to point it out. As summer fades and fall actually arrives the poets and philosophers wax on about how great the change is, or how it's such a great metaphor for the unstoppable slide into decay and death. Sweaters! Pumpkin spice! Country fairs! You're rocketing into darkness at 67,000 miles per hour! By next spring you'll be that much older and more decrepit! Enjoy the holidays!
I have a theory -- which I have not been able to research yet -- that a person's perception of the seasons is shaped by the season into which they were born. I was born into the longest daylight of summer, not right on the solstice, but about a couple of weeks thereafter. My blurry little infant eyes took in long days of high sun separated by short nights, on the New England coast. When your life span has only been measured in days, each day is a significant percentage of your whole life experience. I imprinted on summer. I feel rightest when it's brightest.
From a primitive standpoint, long daylight provides the most generous free illumination under which to get done whatever you need to get done. Of course it could be too hot. And the light cannot be stored. Even with solar chargers, there is loss. You can't spread your panels to the arctic summer and light the entire arctic winter with the power you collected. Not yet, anyway. So the retreat of the sun represents a genuine loss.
As years pass, a person learns to appreciate all that a year has to offer. I moved back to New England eager for winter to make the mountains more mountainous. Snow and ice were the attraction, not an interruption to be endured. Short days and long nights were not benefits, but they were a necessary part of the overall machinery that produced snow and ice. I became a connoisseur of winter. Now I can tell you what really makes a good winter good, and what the best parts are. From a mountaineering and exploring standpoint, the best of winter is short and delicate. But the season of darkness is never short and its hand can be very heavy.
As my outdoor activity shrunk steadily to just commuting by bike and occasional short hikes, my use for the season of darkness and cold has dwindled. From a bike commuting standpoint, darkness makes it more convenient to stop along the road or trail for a leak, unobserved. That's about the full extent of the benefits.
On the road, evil bastards seem emboldened by the darkness. I get more close passes and angry honks when I'm riding with lights at night. And it's not because I have startled them. The effect has gotten worse as I have added more and better lights. These happen less out on the open highway than on Elm Street. You'd think that side roads would be more serene. You'd be wrong. Most of my ugly incidents happen on Elm Street. It's a redneck expressway. People from all over know that it provides a convenient connector to the Route 16 corridor. It's not exactly heavily traveled, because its convenience depends on where you live at the other end of it, but it's seldom deserted. So the last few miles to my house, and the first few miles when I'm warming up, are the most stressful.
September always brings an increase in driver aggression, even in daylight. It fades a bit as fall advances, but solar glare becomes a bigger problem. You hope for dry but overcast days for safer riding. The sun's backhanded slap, devoid of warmth, isn't worth the trouble. I actually enjoy its low-angled glare when I don't have to ride or drive in it. It fits nicely with the melancholy introspection of the season. But on the road it's just another hazard to work around.
Earth's orbit being Earth's orbit, if you hang on long enough you come around again into the light. Things grow, life emerges. June never gets warm enough fast enough, but don't complain. It will be gone again. The wheel does not spin in place. It rolls us for a distance that we don't get to control. That's why I don't care for the seasonal cheerleaders. Look to this day. Know the parameters that define its light so you can plan accordingly. Know the fruits of the season so that you can enjoy them. Your next breath is not guaranteed to you, let alone the season. With only the most necessary glances at the big picture for orientation, watch this moment and be glad when you make it to the next.
4 comments:
Rethink that theory, dearie. I was born on the winter solstice and do no better in the dark than you.
Regarding seasonal cheerleaders, lighten up. People might like to look forward to holidays because they hold special memories.
You would think I would really look forward to Christmas, and if I weren't a working musician, I might really get into it. But starting work on holiday music in September for my middle school concert pretty much kills it for me. And when the gigs and concerts are over and I want to sit back and enjoy the holidays, they're off selling the next one.
Lots of people just drive like A-holes (I won't even ride my bike around Maryland anymore). Maybe they're just as miserable about long days of sunlight ending and either want to get the hell home or are jealous of someone out for a ride.
Otherwise, your final thoughts are excellent advice.
I used to enjoy "the holidays." Some time after the turn of the century that vanished. A lot of factors contributed. I definitely understand the feeling of working hard to provide the fun and then finding the fun all used up by the time you get there.
As for the asshole drivers, I will stand by the observation that they feel freer to express their aggression when cloaked by darkness. Mere traffic density in the typical American motocentric infrastructure excludes most cyclists and turns drivers into assholes just to survive. When I lived in northern Virginia, the infrastructure was very similar to Maryland, but the higher population made the riding unpleasant. I returned to Annapolis, where a rider only had to endure a short gauntlet to escape out into the county, and where neighborhood streets offered some secret passages. By the time I left in the late-mid-1980s, population density and motocentric development were surging. Ironically, the rise in population had brought a larger number of cyclists. But the traffic density had moved the start of the weekly ride from the center of town to the edge of town, at the mall. Now the place is widely viewed as a meat grinder unsuitable for riding. There is now the same rebound of bicycling advocates in the Annapolis area as seen all over the country. We'll see if this generation brings about lasting change, or just more of the usual tokenism.
I was born just on the far side of the Winter Solstice, and I always envied people with summer birthdays. It seemed a multiple whammy to have early dark, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, my birthday, and Valentine's Day in close succession. Many years I would simply go into a depression at the end of Daylight Saving Time and not come out until DST started again. Last time (2017-18) was an exception, possibly because my early work schedule made the start of DST kind of annoying, when it shifted daybreak an hour just when it was getting light for my commute (so I was again starting my day in the dark), and sunset didn't matter to me as much. I have always enjoyed summer days in Northern latitudes when I had the opportunity.
I said it was just a theory. Early returns show that it isn't holding up. Nearly everyone likes light.
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