Thanks for sharing these fascinating insights Miranda. The idea of ‘going dark’ and the yearning to be less visible in terms of becoming more private and anonymous, therefore dark to others sounds compelling. The Sondheim musical also sounds terrific. How strange it must be to never experience the sky at all…
Thanks you for this beautiful elegy to the dark, restorer of souls, humbling and vast. I have noticed of late how much I am yearning for the boundless ness of dark skies, banished by the city lights of where I live.
Thanks Sally - me too, as you've probably gathered. I find disappearing into the darkness strangely comforting and I hope you manage to find some dark outdoor spaces and places too...
Increasingly, ”going dark” is a term used to denote going off-line, incommunicado, or at least off social media. I sense that more people are craving for this. And certainly a time alone can help us work things out. But I don’t really like the idea that we’re in the light when we’re interacting with people through a screen. I think about people who are, for whatever reason, unable to go out of doors independently, how they must ache for a glimpse of sky. Stephen Sondheim write a musical about people who only exist inside a department store and there is a beautiful song in it sung by a young girl who has known no other life since childhood, when she’s asked what she remembers of life outside:
Thanks for sharing these fascinating insights Miranda. The idea of ‘going dark’ and the yearning to be less visible in terms of becoming more private and anonymous, therefore dark to others sounds compelling. The Sondheim musical also sounds terrific. How strange it must be to never experience the sky at all…
Thanks you for this beautiful elegy to the dark, restorer of souls, humbling and vast. I have noticed of late how much I am yearning for the boundless ness of dark skies, banished by the city lights of where I live.
Thanks Sally - me too, as you've probably gathered. I find disappearing into the darkness strangely comforting and I hope you manage to find some dark outdoor spaces and places too...
Increasingly, ”going dark” is a term used to denote going off-line, incommunicado, or at least off social media. I sense that more people are craving for this. And certainly a time alone can help us work things out. But I don’t really like the idea that we’re in the light when we’re interacting with people through a screen. I think about people who are, for whatever reason, unable to go out of doors independently, how they must ache for a glimpse of sky. Stephen Sondheim write a musical about people who only exist inside a department store and there is a beautiful song in it sung by a young girl who has known no other life since childhood, when she’s asked what she remembers of life outside:
I remember days
Or at least, I try
But as years go by
they’re a kind of haze
And the bluest ink
Isn’t really sky
And I sometimes think I would gladly die
For a day of sky
Gorgeous velvet darkness ! Write today about it too- beautiful writing Rachel
Thank you Maria, I know you appreciate the velvet heart of the dark 💫