October Twelfth

October 12 and time grows short in the northern hemisphere, daylight time, that is.

I arrive at the beach at 6:35 pm, but the sun slipped under the ocean horizon at 6:22. The burst of rose gold on every tree and western-facing building has gone, replaced by grey.

A month ago I could arrive at this time and still enjoy the sunset, but now I must arrive at 6, punto, or jog mostly in the dark.

Every year, every day we have this reminder: the light fades. Darkness grows. Perhaps that's why the earth is tilted, rather than a perfect vertical on the plane of its orbit, so that we will learn to "number our days," as Psalm 90 in The Book of Common Prayer says. If every day were exactly twelve hours of sun and shadow, we might learn to expect sameness, eternal life. Instead our days wax and wane, as our lives do.

Yet we "do not go gentle into that good night." We want the light to continue. Every sunset has sadness as well as glory.

When I texted Marie a few weeks ago, "Today's the fall equinox," she texted back, "Ah :( I don't want there to be less sun."

Last January 10th or so, when the staff of Sunrise Assisted Living finally put away the Christmas tree and decorations, my mother commented, "I don't want Christmas to be over."

I argued with her, "They're just putting the things in boxes--they'll be out again next Christmas."

But she knew there would be no more Christmases for her. The twinkling lights were put away for the last time, and she was sad. Three months later, she died.

I've turned sixty now, and I keenly feel the lesson of the fall months as the daylight hours shrink. Yes, the sun itself will burn out eventually, scientists tell us, but homo sapiens had figured that out thousands of years ago. We had learned to fear that the sun might not come back; we built bonfires to help it return.

As I jog, the full moon stands high in the southeastern sky to my left, and Santa Catalina Island floats purple and serene forty miles across the water directly south. It's a beautiful night.

A pile of fresh flowers catches my attention, lying on the higher sand a few feet from the advancing waves: pink and red roses, orange glads, a touch of yellow too--none with stems, just a mound of blossoms offered to the sea.

The sky swells rose, then crimson, where the sun had been, a parting gift to everyone on the continent's western shore. Darkness spreads from the east.

Near Venice Beach the beat of a drum circle grows louder than the surf as I approach. Someone is swinging blue lights on a six-foot rope, like a juggler.

I pass couples embracing, groups of people sitting on the sand to face the sunset, attentive.

"You go, girl!" a female voice shouts at me, and I smile back, laughing at the implication that I'm a real runner, like my friend Mike Smith who ran the Long Beach Marathon today. Her words remind me that there's a culture here of watching and appreciating jogathons, triathlons, and such events--even my humble efforts, my first jog in two weeks.

At the Venice breakwater, I turn and jog back. It's dark now but there's still a band of red at the horizon. I stumble over an invisible pile of seaweed.

As I pass two dark figures sitting on the sand, the strong sweet scent of marijuana drifts on the air.

I'm still thinking of my mother, who died six months ago, just past the spring equinox, how she wanted to hang on to lights and life.

The lilac bush I planted in Colorado has felt the first soft touch of snow, has shivered under a snowfall of two or three inches by now. Have its leaves dropped off? I wonder.

My mother's ashes lie underneath the lilac, secured by sod, serene. I know she's happy to be there where the wind blows and snow falls, no longer trapped in Sunrise Assisted Living.

And is it light or dark where she is?

The hymn in church today declared,

When we've been there ten thousand years,

Bright shining as the sun,

We've no less days to sing God's praise

Than when we've first begun.

She's beyond the waxing and waning of earth time, sun time. Perhaps she is indeed in the presence of great, eternal light.

It's been six months since her death, I say, six circlings of the moon.

But she does not count days and years: if she has consciousness of some sort, she knows only eternity and praise.

I stand gazing at Venus low in the sky, Jupiter, and Saggitarius. Black and grey have replaced the bright sunset; evening chores call me to return to earth time.