Dining with Squirrels

I was told recently that of all the possible sunlight we might receive here in Michigan in December, by Christmas we had only received 3%. THREE PERCENT!!! I don’t think I need to draw any scientific connections for you between sunlight and, say, happiness, but feel free to google it. Or you could just come to my house and wait for a ray of sun to poke through the sky-muck. Watch my head slowly lift from the table and gently crane toward the window. Watch my eyes sparkle, my skin brighten. I’m nicer to the children! My thighs are thinner!

Growing up in Florida, I found the sun oppressive.  I loved the summer rains that would pound the house for an hour in the afternoon. That’s right, an HOUR of rain. Not days. An hour. The sun would slide behind a towering thundercloud like only Florida can make them and I would retreat to my second floor bedroom up against the shaggy oak, climbing in bed to read in the cool dim. I felt relaxed and safe and taken out of the world. Because the sun went behind a cloud. There’s no accounting for it.

Now here I am, craving the sun in a biological, cellular way.  I don’t think I could conceive of rejecting it if my Florida memories weren’t there.  But I did spend my Florida days longing for a respite. Now I spend my winter days here seeking relief.  Too much sun.  Not enough.  So what is it I want?  80% ?  65%?  Perhaps a slim majority — 53%?  Definitely more than 3%, that much I know.

I was reading my bulletin board next to the espresso machine this morning

and found this Gwendolyn Brooks poem. I was undone when I first read it so it went on the board.  And I offer it to you because it’s thrilling and grave, how Ms. Brooks gets right to the heart of the matter in less than a hundred words.  I’ve been struggling for days to express the connection between my biological seeking of the sun and the primal seeking many of us undertake for God.  But I can’t do it.  I’m not brave enough or smart enough.  Let’s say I’m melatonin-compromised.  But even with 3% of my available sun, I know this is a great poem.  Read:

truth

And if sun comes
How shall we greet him?
Shall we not dread him,
Shall we not fear him
After so lengthy a
Session with shade?
Though we have wept for him,
Though we have prayed
All through the night-years —
What if we wake one shimmering morning to
Hear the fierce hammering
Of his firm knuckles
Hard on the door?
Shall we not shudder? —
Shall we not flee
Into the shelter, the dear thick shelter
Of the familiar
Propitious haze?
Sweet it is, sweet it is
To sleep in the coolness
Of snug unawareness.
The dark hangs heavily
Over the eyes.