Culture
TAC‘s weekend correspondent is now a creature of the night.
“In two weeks it’ll be the longest day of the year,” says Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
“Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it?” Daisy continues in a memorable display of her mirthful nonchalance. “I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it.”
Speaking for myself, I would gladly miss the longest day of the year, which, this year, falls on Thursday, June 20th—the date of the summer solstice.
My studied antipathy is not likely to be the common reaction in our decadent civilization, which seeks always to extend the available hours to carouse, socialize and make merry. Next week, if they think to remember the summer solstice, most people will undoubtedly welcome this celebration of the prolongation of daylight. They will use the day as an excuse to stretch out their preferred form of summertime exuberance; perhaps they will barbeque, invite friends over for drinks or simply take a long walk.
This year, however, the summer solstice holds no such appeal for me. In fact, all spring, I have greeted the gradual lengthening of the days as I would a rude awakening from a peaceful slumber: a blast of sunlight coming through the shades far too early in the morning.
My reasons are entirely personal: Last year, on September 28th, my mother died of cancer. It occurred to me, even on that day, that she departed the world at the same time that the world itself was preparing for hibernation and dormancy. This was not distressing but consoling: As I reckoned with my feelings of woe, I watched the days become shorter, darker, grimmer. My mood was matched by the absence of light outside. It was a profound, even visceral illustration of the pathetic fallacy.
Although I saw the irrationality of associating the change in seasons with my anguish, I welcomed the cloak of evening for practical reasons, too. The early arrival of night made it less likely that, when running errands, I would encounter a friend or acquaintance who might ask about my mother. I took to doing grocery-shopping past dark. I also confess to feelings of resentment on behalf of my mother: Since she was no longer able to experience or enjoy the world, it seemed fitting that, each day, the world wound down just a bit earlier.
My embrace of the night was not entirely without precedent. My mother told me that I was born on a stormy night, a fluke that she linked to my preference, later in life, for the sort of overcast weather that Woody Allen is so famous for filming in his movies. Like the dark, the rain forms a protective barrier that can be cozy and consoling.