The Long Night Calls

We woke up just before seven this morning and it was still dark out – dark and cold.  Daylight continues to dwindle while the night grows.  And yet it felt warm and bright within our  little home this morning. 

There is a comfort in getting out of bed and turning the thermostat up on these frigid mornings.  Then there’s the stove and the frying pan awaiting the blueberry pancake batter; Bing Crosby singing carols in the background; and the Christmas tree glowing in the corner of the room with its little while lights and silver and gold ornaments.  Outside in the backyard, on the other side of the picture window, stands another tree; it’s wrapped in blue lights and is our beacon in the morning drear.  The other day it looked like a greeting card dressed in a thin layer of snow and we all stood in wonder as we gathered around it. 

Then there is Will, who is nearing sixteen.  He may be deaf and see nothing more than shapes and shadows, with hips so weak they often collapse beneath him – and yet he wakes up every morning tangled in joy.  He leaps to and fro in his desire to play and if his legs were stronger and his aim truer he may actually be able to catch us as he “gallops” like a slow motion drunken horse.  His front legs are ambitious but are disconnected from the rear ones that don’t have the heart to do go very fast and they are unsure of themselves.  So he rears up to give chase and then realizes it’s not going to happen.  There are even times he topples over.  But none of it dissuades his happiness.  And yet this spectacle is nothing compared to the unmitigated celebration that explodes within him when I’m getting his breakfast.  Every morning is Madri Gras for Will here in Jackson! 

On the other end of the spectrum, Atticus waits.  He sits and watches patiently.  He also eats but neither food nor happiness has ever been withheld from him so he exhibits a stately grace compared to Will.  Besides, although he likes food, what delivers elation to Atticus can’t be found indoors.  It waits outside beyond the fraying edges of the gray morning in the trees and the paths that wind their way through them.

Later today, we’ll leave all this comfort behind.  I’ll get dressed in my hiking gear and bring my three headlamps because I know that night will fall early, and we’ll head out into the woods and up a mountain.  That’s where Atticus is in his element.  It doesn’t matter how cold it is, how much the wind is blowing, or whether we’re being watched by the sun or the stars.  What matters is that we’re out there and up there together. 

For Atticus he is most at ease with me, but he is happiest when we are together on a mountain.  But still, he takes it all in stride, as if this is what life was always supposed to be and what we were meant to be together.  When it comes to me though, I cannot tell you the pleasure I find in being out in the woods when the sun falls behind the mountains and darkness grows.  It used to unnerve me and the darkness fed on a fear that grew with the night.  But now I find comfort in the dance that leads from day to night. 

I even find comfort in the long nights in the coziness inside and the excitement outside.  I like how the wind taunts and harasses me.  I like that I’m warm in my gear with just a hint of discomfort to create an edge.  And I like that together we are far away from anyone else.  It took some time but I finally learned to appreciate that Saint-Exupery quote: “Night, the beloved. Night, when words fade and things come alive.  When the destructive analysis of day is done, an all that is truly important becomes whole and sound again.  When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree.”   

And that’s what I feel like when we are miles away from the rushing world, especially around the holidays like now, when roads and restaurants and stores are crowded and everyone is in a hurry to get somewhere other than where they are.   

In recent hikes night fell on us as we travelled carefully down the icy trail along the Three Agonies as we descended Lafayette; we watched the sun dissolve behind the Tripyramids on the Sandwich Range when we were just a third of the way down the ledges of South Moat; and watched a pregnant moon with its perfectly round belly rise over the little boxes of the village of North Conway below us while we traversed Cathedral and White Horse Ledges.

I derive a delicious pleasure of being where once I feared to be and when considering those steps taken in the forest at night I thrive on the simplicity of it all.  Let the world unleash itself on us as it does from time to time and you can find us on a mountaintop in the dark where I am reassembling my “fragmentary self”.

There’s also something else that’s pleasurable about being on a mountain this time of year when it is cold and the winds are howling when darkness falls.  It makes you feel raw and utterly alive, but it also makes you appreciate a place called home.  It’s adventure that plants the seeds for later contentment. 

So tonight, long after this has been sent off at deadline, we’ll be up on mountain, cloaked in darkness, little lamps lighting our way as we trek across icy rocks leaving behind whatever troubles we’ve accumulated throughout the past days and there will be one thought on my mind – home. 

And when we return home we’ll be happy we ventured away from it, only to return to it with a renewed appreciation and greeted by a little blind and deaf dog who has redefined that term for us – and in the process discovered his own home.