I remember learning of S.A.D. years back, and thinking, huh, seasonal affectiveness is a disorder? Not something we all feel and experience? Not everyone takes the encroaching darkness personally? Of course not.
But I’ve come to realize that while I’m one of the unlucky ones, so impacted by a change in light that my mood changes, accordingly—dictated by the sun’s lead (though I blame Daylight Savings time for the worst of it)—I kind of like it. Well, in the right proportions, at least.
Darkness makes me despondent on the worst days, but on the best days, I’ve found I can harness the darkness. Use it. Embrace that inward turn and even seek out the insight it brings. I can be in the dark, and stare. And look even closer. And see what’s there.
That’s often where my best writing comes from—when I not only face darkness, but identify its shape, and form. Name it. Feel its inky sink, its irksome weight. And listen to the stories that spin and pull me down into it. When I write through that experience, I can (usually!) find a light to guide me.
In fact, part of what I enjoy about the winter is searching for the light—internal and external light. Just like a good plot, the search is often as important as the find itself.
So I continue the search, a kind of treasure hunt each day and night. This year, since I can’t be bedazzled by literal treasures in Christmas shop displays and glitzy holiday sales (those usually help me, I admit—I’m a sucker for holiday decor) I’ve been countering the dark and cold by spending more time in it outside—and staying aware. Looking for a different kind of treasure. I’m a sucker for natural surprises, too.
On neighborhood walks in twilight, my husband and I seek out the soft hooting of two great horned owls that keep returning to our block, and thrill when, in slow swoop, their massive wingspans open then close over dim silhouettes of hickories and pines. The other day they disappeared into the thin copse behind our neighbor’s house and left me starting at the brushstrokes of bare branches, pondering the trees’ patient hunker as the darkness bore down. A darkness soon softened by the owl’s returning calls.