Today truly started out as one of the first Dark Days. I walked out of the apartment in near pitch-black, and paused, unsettled, squinting to glance at my watch's glow-in-the-dark arms. "Surely this is too dark for 6:50AM," I thought to myself. I even considered the possibility that all of the clocks in our apartment had magically jumped ahead two or three hours during the night, thus waking us up way-too-early, with the sun still distant. Unfortunately, it really was 6:50AM, and it really was a dark morning.
As any Seattlite will no doubt remind me, not every morning following this will be such a bleak journey under black skies. I had largely a thick cloud cover to thank. But, of course, that's largely what makes the Pacific Northwest's notoriously depressing winters so bleak: short days (Earth's axial tilt) combined with persistent cloud cover makes the sun a distant memory. While I usually press on through, relatively content, with bleak Seattle winters (I tend to embrace cloudy days more often than I shun them), there are moments where I understand entirely with folks who find persistent, sunless, wet, and dark days difficult at best. Last winter was particularly pressing: Seattle itself had twentysomething days in a row of rain, with only brief glimpses of the sun in the late afternoons, just as it set below the Olympics. Zach, spending much of his days in Olympia to the south, fared even worse: over thirty days of heavy, clinging rain, with absolutely no sign of the sun by day or stars at night.
This morning's black skies, albeit rain-free, couldn't help but remind me: this will be the first of many such days. Sure, tomorrow could be cloud-free, allowing me to watch the sun rise as I commute to the lab. But those cloud-free mornings will be fewer and far between, at least until next April.
It was still largely pitch-black once I left the bus, and began my ten-minute walk across South Lake Union to lab. Most offices and businesses were still shut for the night - black windows less inviting than the open skies. Car headlights flashed menacingly, darting down tunnels and alleys, or inching their way downtown toward half-lit skyscrapers... they stood tall, sharp, and utterly ridiculous against the dark horizon: challenging the sky to show its true colors.
As I walked toward the complex of buildings and labs where I'll attempt to carve out a Ph.D., the sky seemed to oblige - a little. The clouds still mocked us, covering the area like a blanket... but, gradually, the black blanket shifted to dark grey. Turning from the skyscraping becons of the downtown, I faced the neon-white beacons of my workplace. Short and stocky, and dwarfed by Capitol Hill rising behind it, the complex's persistently lit windows still beckoned me, step by step - the unholy lighthouse - yet still a warm and inviting shelter from the black dark grey skies.
I entered the building, however, and didn't feel very warm or welcome. Compared to the near-darkness of my journey, the destination seemed harsh - neon lights beating against my skin, as my wet shoes squeaked along bare floors. The awkward color clung to my face, my clothes. Different rooms had slightly different shades of glowing light - slightly different shades of discomfort. At my desk, in a small cove embraced by a large window, the contrast of my indoor neon-yellow baptism with the dark light grey outside could not be more clear. The greys and browns and greens of the sky, ground, and trees suddenly seemed much more inviting than the neon beacons that had challenged the dark sky.
I grabbed the papers I'd been reading, a cup of coffee, and sat outside, reading... until it began to rain.
Posted by James at October 16, 2006 11:02 AM