“I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself.” ~ Charlotte Bronte
It’s been a while since I’ve had an evening alone in Boston. Usually I’m lucky enough to have Kira by my side, but even for those get-togethers I’m occasionally on my own while she finishes up at work or attends swim lessons (don’t ask). I’d forgotten the calm and peace being alone can afford. Some part of me has missed that, and I didn’t realize that until I had – or, more accurately, made – the opportunity for some alone time.
It came at the time of the day that can either be the most hopeful, or the most frightening. Dusk in the fall and winter more often errs on the side of the latter, eliciting loneliness even for the least lonely among us. There is a sadness when the day dims, especially if the wind is on the rise and the temperature is on the decline. Even in the beauty of the moment – and the sky does some miraculous things when it’s turning the sun down – there is something haunting and sorrowful about the close of a day.
Against all that blue, however, our cozy little condo glows warmly, a safe respite against the dying winter. Its last throes can be its worst, and it’s best not to let down every bit of guard until May at the earliest. We are not quite out of the woods, and even in summer there are shadows.
As the evening curtain falls, the sky deepens in its blue the way the ocean darkens as it goes deeper. It’s a lovely shift of gradient, mirroring the nearby sea in scope and expanse. The notion of all that space is daunting. It has frightened some in the antithetical way of those who find panic in confined spaces. Too much of either makes many of us uncomfortable. Time is like that too. And once in a while a single evening stretches out across the darkening firmament like an endless map of stars.
