The sun is down and it’s quite dark, but the sky is still blue.
Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light,
-Helen Keller
It’s 8:45 PM, roughly a half hour after sunset, and Waldo and I are surrounded by twilight. The horizon in the west is all pastel yellows and oranges and the sky above and to the east, where it can still get direct sunlight, is pale blue. Down at ground level, shadows have gone the way of the dodo and almost all of the color has evaporated in the dimming light. A waxing gibbous moon casts enough light from a cloudless sky that I can make out the tarmac, even though it is black as the darkest night in broad daylight. The trees, bushes and weeds merge together as a mottled grayness that surrounds us on both sides. Even though Waldo is mostly black, I can sort of see him trotting along up front at the forward end of the leash.
Ever since Ali, a rail trail denizen who we frequently pass, told me he used to walk out here late at night, I’ve been tempted to give it a try – just to see how different it is. Today, it only cooled off to Waldo-trekking temperature after sunset, so here we are. And it is different, in many ways.
The birds are quiet; they must have all packed it in for the day. Instead of the vivacious and friendly avian chirp I usually hear, there is an ardent chirruping chorus from frogs somewhere off in the darkness. I don’t hear many insects, but it is still early in the year for them. They are out here, but not nearly in the numbers and variety we’ll have later on. There is no rattle of dead leaves in the undergrowth from frolicking squirrels and chipmunks. They, like the birds, must also be resting in their hidey-holes. Except for the frogs, and the nearby street traffic, there is a blanket of silence that covers the forest. There is not even the rustling of leaves as there is very little breeze.
Waldo is a night owl. Sort of. If I stay up after 11 PM, he retires into the bedroom. However, it only takes a whispered “outside?” to bring him bolting up from a reclined coil in his bed to the apartment door. Once outside, he rushes about, dancing and jumping, enjoying his last taste of outdoor freedom for the day. He is much livelier and energetic than he is the rest of the day. But, then, when we get back inside, he rushes off to lay down in his bed again, without my saying a word.
True to this pattern, Waldo is out front gently pulling at the leash. I can’t really see that well what he’s doing, but whatever it is, he’s doing it with gusto. After all, you don’t need daylight to be able to smell and he does see the world through his nose. Even though we pass a few bikes out here, he isn’t hypervigilant like he is during the day. Maybe that’s because we can’t see them, except for their headlights, and lights don’t look like a nasty old bicycles.
As the night comes on, even the sky loses its color. There remains a gray celestial glow from the moonlight and the light pollution from surrounding cities (including Boston, which is only about 25 miles away). There are also occasional street lights, lit up house windows, passing car headlights and other human sources of illumination, that add to the dim ambient glow. In places, where the forest is thickest, the moonlight and the other sources of light are blocked by dense foliage and things get kinda black. In these places, I can’t really see the tarmac and Waldo becomes only a couple of moving swatches of pale white — the tip of his tail and his feet. I can still see where to go, after a fashion, because the space in front of me is paler than that off to the sides. It’s kind of like going for the light at the end of a tunnel, except it’s only a suggestion of light, not the real deal.
I’ve never been afraid of the dark, other than being cautious not to stumble because I can’t see where I’m going. I brought a headlamp with me, but it stays in my pocket. Hubris, maybe, but I’m having a good time playing with the dark. I don’t know if I could get away with it if the moon were to set (scheduled for around 1:45 AM), but it stays in the sky and both Waldo and I are comfortable with what light nature provides.
We get back to the car at 11 PM and head home. Waldo seems grateful for a romp at night in the cool air, but I prefer the daytime. There is not only so much more to see in the light, the world is so much more alive when the sun is up.
All the same, Waldo and I are happy to walk at almost anytime.
Later on, even the sky is black.