Today is the Winter Solstice. Basically it marks the longest night of the year, right along with the shortest daylight in the year. Folks mark it as something special all over the world; but to me its just another day on the farm where I get finished with all my chores at dark. This is what old folks call “midwinter” and I tend to agree. The weather gets nutty at times during this, before and after that is.

One day its 70 degrees and you are playing outside in shorts, if you are Shady of course. And then its freezing cold at night, and you can’t run your fan in the window. Its like the weather gets confused about what it is supposed to do. I love the warm days myself, and the cold nights. As long as the night stays around 46 degrees, I get to cover up, knowing the next day will probably have sunshine, especially if I get up early enough to enjoy it.

I told y’all all that to tell you about a conversation I had with Shady the other day. He had asked me to go out to the shed with him, and both of us would have to bring flashlights, because he is so afraid of the dark. I try not to scare him about the dark, simply because it upsets him so bad. When he has to go somewhere in the dark on the farm, I always go with him just because.

We had to go out to the shed, because that is where Mamaw keeps all of our extra stuff, like toys we don’t play with much, especially Shady. She also keeps quilts she buys and sells, and stuff like extra cookware that she wants to donate to “them battered women and families that don’t have the wherewithal to do with, as well as we do.” Mamaw says that, and she always keeps something in reserve, in case “some poor deprived impoverished soul might need it” sometimes. That’s her, always thinking of others.

Anyway, she sent me and Shady out to get one of the extra quilts she has, because she heard of a family that needed an extra one, and planned to bring it to give to one of the mother’s at Wednesday night prayer meeting. And she of course needed to wash it to make sure it was fresh to give away. It was a fine quilt, it had a big horse on it, wearing a fine blanket that looks like it was from Mexico. A blanketed horse on a blanket; that just seems right somehow.

OK I am getting to the conversation. While we were in the shed, we turned on the light bulb, and we found the quilt right in the plastic tub that Mamaw said it would be in, and we took it out. We put the tub back, and right when we was ready to go back to the house with it, Shady asked me a really odd question; not odd for him though. He asked, “Pete, when the sun goes down, where does the dark go?”

Now this was a genuine question, and I actually had him sit down at a table we had set up in the barn. I was going to have to think on this one. He thinks I know everything, but I really don’t. Sometimes I pretend to know everything, but truth be told there is a lot, me being only an 8th grader that is, doesn’t have a clue about. I told him, “Shady, I am not actually sure, but we can try an experiment if you want to.”

Shady got excited because he loves it when I do stuff like this, so I told him; “You turn off our flashlights on the table, and we will have the overhead light bulb on for now. When I tell you to do this though, you can’t get scared. What we are going to do is try a ‘darkness experiment, see? I am not going to scare you, or nothing like that I promise, but we are going to try to figure it out together.”

Now Shady was at first uneasy about being in the dark for even a second, but he really understood me, after I explained that I was planning to just sit there a minute and flick the light switch on and off a few times, so we could get our minds going as to where the dark goes.

“OK Shady, are you good? Don’t get sad or afraid. I promise I ain’t going to leave or do nothing silly this time? Turn off them flashlights and sit right there at the little brown table, and I am going to go right over here by the door and flick the light on and off a few times. We will wait when we turn off the light about 30 seconds each time, so don’t get scared. I will keep talking so you can hear my voice.”

Shady nodded his head in excitement at our experiment, so when the flashlights were off, I walked over to the door, then I said so he could hear me, “Get ready now. I am going to count off to three then I am flicking the light off. 1-2-3 off. I kept talking to him, “Now think on the dark for a minute and tell me what comes to you?” Shady didn’t cry or run or anything like that, like he normally would. He said, “I see pointy little lights a little, and some shadows.” So I flicked the light back on.

I asked him again from by the door, “Now what do you see? Feel anything? What do you notice?” Shady told me, “I feel like my eyes are springing back to life, and its like being in the sun and going into a room real quick, but I don’t see anything except the room lit up.” I did this a few times, and he was brave, because it was an experiment, and he is ALWAYS up for an adventure, even with a light bulb in the shed.

He kept telling me his eyes would see ‘moving little squiggle things’ when the light was off, and it would feel like his eyes were ‘springing back’ when I would turn it back on. Finally, I told him how it was explained to me; “You see Shady, darkness doesn’t really go anywhere, the light just overpowers it. So darkness is the absence of light.” Shady lit up, “You mean the light just shoos the dark away? Like a critter?”

I answered, “Yeah its kind of like that, but the dark can’t be where the light is, and that is about all I can tell you. Well he got it in his head that the light scares off the dark, and he laughed out loud. We got the quilt back off the table and went into the house, and gave it to Mamaw. Mamaw asked us, “Sakes alive you two, I thought you got lost going to the shed, and I was about to send out a search party! I told you right where to find it, what were you two up to?”

I started explaining to Mamaw how I was trying to help Shady not be afraid of the dark, but Shady suddenly started talking over me. “Mamaw, Pete is so cool, and he is so smart! I asked him where the dark goes, and he showed me that the light chases it off like a critter!” He started flicking the flashlight in his hand on and off, and saying “Shoo, dark! Git gone now!” And then he would cackle with glee, even though the house is well lit.

Shady was so happy with our experiment, and I didn’t really tell him anything he couldn’t figure out on his own. Mamaw brought us back to reality, “Well, I am glad you two got the universe all figured out, but you best get over here and eat your plates of food, or you will be trying to figure out where the heat from them meat and potatoes goes too!”

After all that, I still don’t know where the dark goes, but Shady thinks he does, and it makes him happy. He will probably be flicking the light switch in his room for a month!