PHOTOGRAPH by sandago / dreamstime
January, again. The nights linger, long and lightless, and December’s festivities feel like dreams. Last month, my calendar swelled with holiday parties; this month, the little boxes are scrabbled with deadlines and meetings and goals. (Gross!) Worse, by the time you read this, chances are the twinkly lights in your neighborhood have been unhooked, coiled like hibernating snakes into cardboard boxes for the next 11 months.
As I write, I’m perched (per usual) on the seventh floor of Crosstown Concourse, my writing/thinking spot of choice. String lights forming an extremely impressionistic ‘tree’ make magic among the metal and concrete. Strangers are more apt to smile, to wish each other happy holidays. This time of year — that of merry brightness — can be difficult in a lot of ways for a lot of us, but there are twinkles among the darkness.
Admit it or not, I suspect we’re all a little bit afraid of the dark. What fear could be more natural? We can’t tell what or who lurks there; even the most familiar settings seem strange.
I’ve never understood why we’re so quick to pack all those twinkles away. By New Year’s Day, the sidewalks are littered with the evergreen trees, now not so evergreen, that just a few days earlier shone in strangers’ windows. The strings of lights that made celestial constellations of windows and eaves and late-blooming azaleas have been shaken loose and unplugged. The darkness is simply darkness again.
I don’t imagine that I’ll change many minds about many things, not in this 800-word monthly column. Whatever your political leanings, your views on Israel and Gaza, on guns, on religion, on … any of it: You aren’t here to reexamine those facets of yourself. But maybe I can convince you to pause a little longer before turning off the lights. Let your front porch sparkle a few weeks more; if you went to the trouble of spangling your home with tiny gleaming stars, leave them there until the daylight begins to lengthen once more. I bet your neighbors will be grateful: I know I will.
Because admit it or not, I suspect we’re all a little bit afraid of the dark. What fear could be more natural? We can’t tell what or who lurks there; even the most familiar settings seem strange.
A few strings of lights aren’t going to defang the dangers that lurk at night, it’s true. But they might help us feel ever so slightly less alone — because we don’t just illuminate our homes at the holidays for ourselves; we turn on the lights for each other, quietly but collectively.
Maybe next January, I’ll share my pitch about how we really ought to scatter our holiday parties throughout the dark winter months, rather than cramming all the year’s biggest gatherings into a two-week period. (Holiday party in early February, anyone?) But for now: I just hope you’ll leave the lights on.
