Afraid of the Dark

Beautiful book cover from http://laurabirdsall.tumblr.com/

When I first read Arthur Miller's play, The Crucible, I remember thinking that I could understand and even sympathize with the bristling hostility of that Puritan community. Yes, there is an actual "witch-hunt"--you'll recall that the play is a dramatization of the infamous Salem Witch Trials. So how could I sympathize?

Because they feared living in darkness.

These were freshly minted settlers, most of whom had never encountered anything as awesome and imposing as the colonial American landscape. On the fringe of their town lay large, ominous forests that housed the unknown--and in the long nights of winter, what could have been more natural than to cast their imagination out into the darkness?

Even today, I can recall the unease of my first Connecticut winter. Watching the light fade in the woods behind our house, it was all too easy to speculate on what phantoms came out in the night. My redemption came in the form of a nightlight.

A casual search for nightlights turns up everything from the generic (left) to the lovely (right). As with everything in design, why invite drab rather than joy into your home? :)

Source: www.engadget.com

Source: www.thegreenhead.com

My favorite nightlights, however, are two that I discovered when Jon and I recently visited Half Moon Bay. We were renting a tiny apartment, which barely accommodated its few sticks of furniture. But on our first night, I discovered and thoroughly delighted in these two charming nightlights (later traced to Etsy: House of Six Cats). 

They had the atmospheric feel of 19th century daguerrotypes, which always give me the impression that time doesn't have to rush by--it can actually be caught and held for a blissful moment. 

At night in that apartment, I was comforted by the sweetness of the nightlights. Outside children's rooms, we typically treat them as homely and functional objects. Yet back in Half Moon Bay, they put me in mind of something I often forget: that darkness has its own particular beauty. Yes, it can be gloomy and grim. But it can also be wonderful--as when I sometimes lie awake at night, listening to Jon breathe, feeling that time has slowed. I'd like to remember that more often.