I do not like to leave the house after dark. I do not like to leave the house, period. But I’m well acquainted with the fact that I have to, and that it benefits me not to remain indoors for all of my life even when I want to because that’s where the Netflix and wine are.
Last Friday, the penultimate day of Sydney’s annual winter light festival called Vivid (back after a two-year hiatus and, honestly, the only thing to live for in winter since Christmas here is in the summer), I had to decide whether to live up to my Big Talk from earlier in the week of taking the ferry into the city to see the lights. Problem was, the lights came on at 6 pm. After dark. And Little Brother? He was leaning into the introverted side of his personality pretty hard, begging not to go. I sat by the fire with my Kindle and wondered if we might just skip it this year.
Luckily, we had The Husband and The Kid to force us into the car. Also, there was the promise of burgers and fries that we would eat on the boat, which we did as we were slung across the waves toward the harbour. Once we disembarked, we headed through the teeming throng toward Baskin-Robbins, since apparently food is our sole motivator because it works, and while we finished our cones we stood, shivering, in front of the Customs House to see Ken Done’s installation.
And then? Home, via boat again, the lights of the Opera House and several booze cruises that I may or may not have thought about jumping ship to join illuminating our path. This is winter in Sydney, with its lack of Christmas and insulation in homes leading to a singular experience of cold that you just don’t get until you’re wearing three layers in front of a fire while it’s 65 (18 Celsius) and sunny outside.
Our first Vivid here was during a visit from my cousin and her husband, and since then it has felt like a beacon, a midwinter life raft, a celebration reaching far beyond the lights themselves. I remember, from my first winter (and every one after) in New York, how the cold and short days can catch you unaware, how one evening you realise you’ve sunk into a seasonal depression (unlike, but often mixed with the regular kind for fun!). How dangerous the dark can be, but also necessary, because without it there’s no light.
I’ve narrowly missed branches and plummets during pre-dawn runs; have had near-collisions with cars in the dark; have sunk to the bottom of a psychological pit, all because of a lack of light. But I’ve also watched dawn creep in, slowly sometimes and sometimes all at once, the golden rays of sunrise never failing to return. I know that we have to have both: that to be fully alive is to feel, deeply, the dark as well as the light.
The family we passed on the street the other day, having not seen them for years, and when I uttered that to them and the boys–how much older they all were, how long it’s been–it struck me that we’ve been a family ourselves longer here than we were back in Atlanta. The “you are precious and loved” mantra/promise I repeat every morning to the boys in the car and how, now, they tell me I am too. The arm slung around me in sleep, the acknowledgment of hard-fought victories over the dinner table, the bursts of light in the winter: little sunrises everywhere, if only I look.