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juushikaBack when I was living in my apartment in Portland, down in a little one-bedroom basement place, I rarely saw the sun. I used to hide from it. Not just outdoors, bright-light sun—but everything down to the rays through the window. Only one small window stood uncovered by blinds; it was in the same room as my computer and during the day, I used to advert my eyes from that window, I used to pretend that there was no sun shining through. Seeing the sun cycles would be to admit to the passage of time and to the existence of a real world outside the confines of that small apartment—and at the end of my stay there, things like time and existence and reality were more than I was able to handle.
When I moved into the townhouse, windows were everywhere. My bedroom was on the second floor, white-carpeted and open and empty but for my spacious bed. Two windows shone sunlight into that room. I'd hang a sheet over the windows because bright light has always bothered my eyes, but I learned, living there, to lay in that diffused glow, curled on burnt orange sheets, reading sometimes, writing a little (although I did most of that downstairs), watching a lot of movies on my laptop—and napping through the days. I was recovering, then, from the low point I had hit before. I was not healthy, but those golden sunlight afternoons taught me that, for me, perhaps there was a sort of health in just curling up with a book or for a nap—and aiming to nothing more.
These days, the room I share with Devon is cornered on two sides by huge windows. One is densely blinded; one has blinds and I sometimes cover it with a sheet, and sometimes can't be bothered. A large flowering bush stands before that latter window, and it filters out most of the sharper light. I go days, weeks, at a time without thinking much on the sunlight that comes through. Sometimes when I leave the house, the brilliance of the light blinds and confuses me. But sometimes I long for the sun in the way that seems most strange for someone who rarely goes outside, who is afraid of direct light, whose eyes dislike even an overhead bulb. I don't long for the sun as my sister does: to have it on her face, warm and present. I long for its glow: for reflections in burnt orange, for gentle light and barely perceptible warmth, for the golden ambiance that only sunrays can bring.
I am healthier now than I have been for years—healthy as one can hope to be when one "cures" ills not by fighting them, but by giving into them. I have cut myself off from the real world so that things like time, existence, reality are not present dangers—so that they are optional, and therefore sometimes even desirable. Sun cycles rarely scare me, now. Nor need I try to recover (with the same desperation, anyway) from the time when they did. But the sun is still an unexpectedly blessed thing. I'm a night-beast, a pale- and thin-skinned being, suited for shade and dark; I still fear and hate direct sunlight. But that golden light, that ambient glow, holds me curled catlike: napping, maybe; amusing myself, perhaps; comfortable, warmed, calmed. I miss it in the winter, although I welcome Oregon's thick wet weather. I treasure it in the summer, although I hate heat. It is my pocket of safety, golden orange, recumbent, content.
I don't want to sleep tonight less because I'm wakeful (I am that, but only by fighting my tiredness), less because I'm anxious, less for what I have or feel—than for what I don't. I want to nap in the gentle sunlight, rather than sleeping in the blueblack of late night. I want that golden comfort calm. I know it's silly to stay up to sleep with the sun, I know that I could well regret it (I do lose a lot of time that way), but I get like this sometimes. I remember the townhouse, I remember that cream and orange bedroom, I remember when I realized there was a hope—if I chose to lay back and rest through the day, rather than trying to make something of it, I could, perhaps, be happy.
When I moved into the townhouse, windows were everywhere. My bedroom was on the second floor, white-carpeted and open and empty but for my spacious bed. Two windows shone sunlight into that room. I'd hang a sheet over the windows because bright light has always bothered my eyes, but I learned, living there, to lay in that diffused glow, curled on burnt orange sheets, reading sometimes, writing a little (although I did most of that downstairs), watching a lot of movies on my laptop—and napping through the days. I was recovering, then, from the low point I had hit before. I was not healthy, but those golden sunlight afternoons taught me that, for me, perhaps there was a sort of health in just curling up with a book or for a nap—and aiming to nothing more.
These days, the room I share with Devon is cornered on two sides by huge windows. One is densely blinded; one has blinds and I sometimes cover it with a sheet, and sometimes can't be bothered. A large flowering bush stands before that latter window, and it filters out most of the sharper light. I go days, weeks, at a time without thinking much on the sunlight that comes through. Sometimes when I leave the house, the brilliance of the light blinds and confuses me. But sometimes I long for the sun in the way that seems most strange for someone who rarely goes outside, who is afraid of direct light, whose eyes dislike even an overhead bulb. I don't long for the sun as my sister does: to have it on her face, warm and present. I long for its glow: for reflections in burnt orange, for gentle light and barely perceptible warmth, for the golden ambiance that only sunrays can bring.
I am healthier now than I have been for years—healthy as one can hope to be when one "cures" ills not by fighting them, but by giving into them. I have cut myself off from the real world so that things like time, existence, reality are not present dangers—so that they are optional, and therefore sometimes even desirable. Sun cycles rarely scare me, now. Nor need I try to recover (with the same desperation, anyway) from the time when they did. But the sun is still an unexpectedly blessed thing. I'm a night-beast, a pale- and thin-skinned being, suited for shade and dark; I still fear and hate direct sunlight. But that golden light, that ambient glow, holds me curled catlike: napping, maybe; amusing myself, perhaps; comfortable, warmed, calmed. I miss it in the winter, although I welcome Oregon's thick wet weather. I treasure it in the summer, although I hate heat. It is my pocket of safety, golden orange, recumbent, content.
I don't want to sleep tonight less because I'm wakeful (I am that, but only by fighting my tiredness), less because I'm anxious, less for what I have or feel—than for what I don't. I want to nap in the gentle sunlight, rather than sleeping in the blueblack of late night. I want that golden comfort calm. I know it's silly to stay up to sleep with the sun, I know that I could well regret it (I do lose a lot of time that way), but I get like this sometimes. I remember the townhouse, I remember that cream and orange bedroom, I remember when I realized there was a hope—if I chose to lay back and rest through the day, rather than trying to make something of it, I could, perhaps, be happy.
