Waning civil twilight
When I last wrote here, two months ago, the long summer days were upon us here in Copenhagen, their near-endlessness both wonderful and exhausting. So much daylight to enjoy and live in! So little darkness in which to grab some restful sleep!
The morning’s summer civil twilight nudged us all awake ever earlier, with help from the wakeful birds. The evenings coaxed us to stay up later and later, long past our ordinary bedtimes. On those longest days the sun would rise at 4:25 am and set at close to 10 pm/2200, with the ambient twilight — what’s called “civil light” or civil twilight — reaching its wide awakening arms into the 3 am hour, holding them open deep into the 11 pm/2300 hour.
Now we are in a waning time.
Waning can be discomfiting, signifying decline, growing limits, or increasing scarcity. As I age, I am more alert to what’s waning within me, even as I try to coax my body or mind to keep trying, keep going, new challenges, greet the fear. For instance, my eyesight has changed (thus I love my readers and how they help me see), and, day by day, I find the rapid digital and technological advances bewildering and disorienting, making tools out of us, even as I reluctantly try to appreciate how they might be tools for us.
It can be disorienting and scarier still when we feel waning not just in ourselves, but also around or between us. We notice coarsening in language, narrowing and flattening of thought, and increased brittleness and contempt in our interactions with others. We know these fears, from the testimonies of the past, as well as from contemporary others. Even though civil twilight is a technical term for a certain kind of light, I find the term a perfect poetic analogy to the light that persists between, among, and within people no matter how dark it gets.
(Paradoxically, sometimes those without eyesight are able to see best.)
So civil twilight is critical light, and we must do what we can with the light that we have, and to keep walking in the light, even if or when the darkness grows.
“For a brief time still, the light is among you. Walk by the light you have so darkness doesn’t destroy you. If you walk in darkness, you don’t know where you’re going. As you have the light, believe in the light. Then the light will be within you, and shining through your lives. You’ll be children of light.” John 12:35-36
But no matter what darkens our path or our minds, from within us or around us, it’s always harder to see what’s ahead in the dark. Even when we’re trying to be cautious, wise, and prudent, we’re more likely to stumble. We reach and feel nothing. We think the way is clear and then stub our toes. It’s difficult to know who to trust and it’s harder to see kind faces. Our imaginations can play games with us as we feel our sense of ease and freedom narrowing, as the margins of risk and danger palpably grow.
As the light wanes and darkness begins to grow here, I am ever more grateful for light and for those who hold candles up within it. I’m looking forward to the candlelight that will begin to grace the city, as shopkeepers set out glass lanterns on the sidewalks out front of their shops, holding lit candles (so hygge). The gentle rays of those tiny candles make a huge difference, casting beauty and warm glow into the city.
Light overpowers darkness so reliably, and many lights can scatter even overwhelming darkness. As our priest here likes to say, one candle is a sign of hope, but many candles are a sign of joy.
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What’s bringing me joy - where I’m seeing light:
Good books:
Leah Libresco Sargeant has a book coming out called The Dignity of Dependency (in October from Notre Dame). As part of her promotional gear-up, Leah has a terrific “mutual dependence” bingo card generator that you should explore and try to play in real life!
Terrific people with terrific newsletters:
I’m grateful for Cary Umhau’s Substack, and especially her latest missive on the “Ubiquitous Kindness of Strangers,” proposing the power of germ theory, which is analogous to the power of light. Cary observed a man digging through trash looking for something to eat, so . . . :
“I went over and offered him some cash and suggested he could hopefully get something better. He was happy enough about that. But then when I reached out my hand to shake his, and asked his name (“Brandon”) and shared mine, he beamed like I’d given him a million dollars.
“Sometimes we (any of us) are hungrier for being noticed and acknowledged than we are for extra chicken.”
Good neighbors with whom I’m mutually dependent:
I’m thankful for a nearby bicycle repair shop, and for the help the store owner has given me with bikes our family depends upon daily. Helping me with broken derailleurs and faulty, squeaking brakes, our neighborhood bike repair person brings me great joy! People capable of repair are bright lights in the world — although they often have to deliver bad news, call it as they see it, and we have to trust and value their expertise. Our broken world begs for the kind of thinking that acknowledges the imperative of repair.
I had the privilege of bringing some groceries to a new elderly friend who, no kidding, worked in the Danish resistance against the Nazis. (Yes, elderly.) I peppered this person with questions about their experiences, to which they responded, “Oh, it’s past history! Yes, journalists have asked about my life. I don’t like to talk about it much. But one thing I still wonder about is why I never felt afraid.”
That wondrous tidbit about not feeling afraid is one I am desperate to hear more about, especially as the civil twilight wanes.
Thanks so much for reading.