The curse of the darkness

It was already dark at 5pm tonight, thick and heavy, that inky blackness of Seattle in November after the time change for Daylight Savings. I felt squeezed by it, tightly, as though it had compressed all the air out of my lungs in the few minutes it took for the darkness to descend.

Living here in the Pacific Northwest is like that. It's a little like living inside a giant metaphorical bellows.

During the summer, the world opens up, expanding and inviting one to breathe deeply.

But I wasn't ready for the intake of life this year, still reeling and breathless from the blow to the solar plexus I'd been dealt earlier.

So I didn't expand my existential diaphragm to suck in a big breath to give my life's blood enough fuel and energy to take me through the airless months of winter's collapse.

It reminds me of that time at the church summer school program when I was ten, when someone shoved me from behind into the deep end of the swimming pool. I didn't have a chance to take a breath before I went under the water, and then as I was struggling to come up for air, another kid cannon-balled in on top of me, forcing me down again so that I was sure I was going to drown.

That's how I feel right now, as the darkness squeezes the air out of life again, as the days grow claustrophobic and short and the weather more miserable, as the holidays encroach. Even as I write this, the lights in the house have blinked a few times from the gusting winds outside, threatening to plunge me into blackness even in the safety of my little hovel home.

I used to say at this time of year that the darkness is like being a tiny person standing inside a giant pot, with the shadows growing quickly to darken every inch of space as a lid is lowered to cover the pot.

But the darkness this year has a different quality. This year I'm left fearing that I may never breathe again.