You know what dark is good for? Rock star activities, burglary, people whose boyfriends are vampires, sitting out back having a smoke whilst listening to the soothing sound of crickets, and speaking in fake accents.

None of these things are useful to my life. Except maybe the fake accents part. And no matter what I do, it just keeps getting darker. I like a nice sunny day for things like working out weave pole bugs, not getting lost in the forest, drawing with pens, taking pictures, and going to the beach. If you did my colors, I would probably be a summer. A spring. I probably am supposed to wear khaki pantsuits with bright pink scarves tied in an Hermes knot around my neck. I need to find this out. Perhaps the wrong ensembles contribute to my seasonal disorder.

Lately, my life got so filled up with to-do lists that I had to start getting up at 5am. In the dark. Very dark. And when I get home from work, nearly dark. By the time we’ve tromped down to the beach, or set foot into the forest, dark. At the beach, not so bad, we know where every rock is and how to get back up the cliff path. And walking home I can smell people’s food. Macaroni cheese casseroles with turnips. Meaty bits with perhaps some grease. BBQ. The dogs like this. I like to guess the food smells. Knowing when I get home, either I luck out and Gary stopped at Tacos Morenos or I fill up a bowl with some raw broccoli and dump on some salad dressing.

If I try to stop too late in the forest on the way home from work, when the last bits of light are draining out through the treetops, it gets a little spooky. Spooky that I could lose a dog out there, black dogs running amongst black trees, and that the forest people can see me with their eyes and I can’t see them. And owls. I don’t much like to see or hear them. They certainly have scenic natural beauty and all but I don’t want to hear about it in the dark. In the dark, if I forget to turn at a certain tree, they all start to look the same and there’s always the potential issue of they begin to talk and so forth and we feel a little panicky. The forest in the dark is something to be avoided.

Without darkness, we would never know the light. I believe this is a lesson that we learned from Batman. Or the Bible. I forget which. I didn’t actually read either, but I have seen the movie versions. This great, cosmic wiseness doesn’t really make me feel any better. Winter is coming and I’m a summer. I need to wash the horse blankets and unwrinkle my sweaters. And just get used to the dark, until we get the light back.