Number 29

 Moon 

I swear the best chunk of work I do all day is between midnight and 2am. Everyone else already is in bed, even the dog, asleep with his back against the hallway wall. Internet is fast. I'm alone in my office with the light (compact florescent) burning, just me and iTunes on shuffle, a blanket over my knees, no sunlight across my left shoulder to taunt me.

I used to condemn myself for it. Some days I still do, especially when I wake after noon, with sun already half-burned. I love sun. I could be a devotee of Amon-Ra.

Here, in winter, light of any kind is in short supply, and giving up half a day's sun to be a nightdweller appears perverse foolishness. I said once, half in jest, that I was a vampire, that all of us are vampires. I said that if this log is anything it is a log of depression. As anyone who's read the trail journals can attest, grief and guilt are conditions that oppress me, whether during Aroostook winter or adventure travel.

Do I bring grief on myself with my affinity for night? I write my record of battle at two in the morning, alone, my Shadow in the hall and my knees beneath my desk, keeping myself from the light that cures. A hermit, I carry my lantern before me as I walk in the bleak wilderness. All of us walk alone through the valley of the shadow of dark with only a light to guide us.