Degrees of darkness

I realised this morning when I was compos mentis that I couldn't remember falling asleep, and had only the merest wisp of a memory of dreaming - it was as if my brain was switched on when Himself brought me a mug of tea. I suppose it was a bit like being a child again, only without the fear that would have me wail (I must have been small because I remember what I would have been reading) "I can't get to sleep!" How my parents must have cursed ... 

And today? Think headless chicken. As Himself is currently wedded to the organ in the perishing church I was left to "get on." This included not only making soup, but also getting some present-wrapping done. Only trouble was, I couldn't for the life of me remember where I'd put the paper, tape, labels and so on when I did some wrapping the other day. It took me three journeys upstairs before I remembered I'd put them in a large cardboard box under the sideboard "to be handy". My house is currently full of cardboard boxes, and I've been through them all today. Even after I found the paper, I discovered I couldn't find a parcel that I was sure had been delivered, but I'm now wondering if I'd just seen an order acknowledgement. I am clearly a few marbles short these days. 

I restored equilibrium in the only way open to me, as Himself wanted to practise again without walking up the road carrying all his gubbins (music, shoes - which would grow mould if left in church - keys ...) So, having dropped him off, I set off down the road to Toward. (I was finding town depressing today). I realised as I drove that it was going to be too dark to chance walking on the road - I really need to get a hi-viz jacket - so I parked at the primary school and walked out round Toward point. There are pavements of a sort for most of that road, but not a single street light. That's where I took the photo, at the start of my walk, showing the short row of houses on the main road as I set off down between the fields. (I liked the silhouettes of the trees).

As I walked, I thought about two things. The first was that it felt privileged to be a woman walking alone in the dusk in such a still place, without any fear other than stepping on something I couldn't see. I'd been listening to an interview on Woman's Hour concerned with the issue of misogyny as a hate crime (have you ever noticed what a high standard of interview you get on WH?), so I suppose I'd been thinking about the things that happen to women.

And as I neared the car at 4.30pm in the almost-dark, I reflected on how it wasn't really dark when you didn't have any lights at all. I could see my feet on the dark road, I could see the fields and the outline of the coast, I could see the trees. The moment I got into the car and put the lights on, it was dark. I felt I could see nothing, that I'd have been better without lights. So you need light truly to experience darkness? I suspect that doesn't hold up other than out of doors in the country, preferably with a grey misty cloud cover, but there's all sorts of implications come with the thought.

I mean - we could learn to think chaotic government was normal, if we didn't have any shining examples, couldn't we?