A rare morning of darkness.
I woke up at 4:30 this morning, which isn’t all that unusual. What is unusual was how dark it was.
Yes, it’s true: the sun won’t rise this morning until 6:59 AM. Logic seems to dictate that it should be dark at 4:30. Yet is it seldom dark in my home.
While I live 2 miles down an unpaved (and unlighted) road that’s about 8 miles to the nearest town of any size — the City of Wenatchee, WA — and I’m surrounded by open land, orchards, and towering cliffs, the sad truth is that there’s enough light from Wenatchee and a handful of homes, orchards, and businesses within sight of my property to prevent it from ever getting really dark at my home. It’s not bright like Los Angeles or New York or even Phoenix, but it’s bright enough that my home, which has lots of curtain-free windows — who needs curtains when there’s no one around to look in? — has no need for night lights and nighttime sky viewing was disappointing enough for me to sell my telescope.
Light pollution is what I’d call it.
Don’t get me wrong — I don’t mind all those lights. From my home, which is perched high above the city, all those lights can be quite beautiful at night. As I likely recounted elsewhere on my blog, they remind me of the view from the “rich people’s hill” my dad would occasionally take us for a drive up at night. My view is better than that was, of course, stretching 50 miles or more up to the North Cascades during the day. At night, I see most of Wenatchee and East Wenatchee, including the lights at the airport, which should be blinking right now (at 5:45 AM) in preparation for the airliner’s first departure of the day.
But I can’t see any of that right now. The lights are gone, blanketed by a thick fog that might, at this point, even surround me. I have no way of knowing because it is so dark.
It wasn’t that dark when I woke briefly at 1:45 AM. I knew immediately that it was foggy out, but the nearly full moon kept the sky bright. I went to my bedroom window for a look outside and saw the hillside behind my house and the top of the fog bank stretching as far as I could see.
When I rolled out of bed sometime after 5, I challenged myself to find my way to the kitchen without turning on a light. That’s something that I do every day, but it was a challenge this morning. What finally drew me in, like a moth to a porch light, was the light cast by numerous devices in my kitchen, great room, and loft: the clock on my microwave and stove and kitchen stereo. The blue status light on my Wink hub. The green status light on an Airport Express I use for music sharing. The blinking blue lights on my Internet router. A steady glowing red light on the power strip behind the television. Those lights were like beacons that brought out the dim details of an all-too-familiar space. I stood in the entrance to my kitchen area for a moment, taking inventory of all those tiny lights, and then flicked the light switch to officially start my day.
Now I’m sitting at the breakfast bar in my kitchen, typing away on my laptop with a hot cup of coffee beside me. Other than the tiny light I’ve already listed, four blown glass track light fixtures with halogen bulbs are illuminating the room. Out the window beside me that normally shows so many amazing views from my aerie is nothing but blackness.
Soon, it will get light enough for me see whether I’m in or over the fog bank. Eventually, the sunlight will poke its fingers through whatever clouds are above me to brighten the day. I’ll likely take some pictures and share them on Twitter, as I so often do.
But for now, I think I’ll turn off the lights, find a comfortable seat by the window, and sip my coffee in the darkness, enjoying this rare event while it lasts.
