I Have Been One Acquainted With The Night

So it's 1:00AM. Earlier than many nights I get the blogging bug, I was out driving on the streets on a Monday night/Tuesday morning and was thinking about why I find myself out about that time so oft in the early morning hours. I'm not sure I can accurately articulate the reasoning for the desire, though I have my theories, I can at least start with an explanation of the feelings these late nights arouse.

Have you ever seen the first scene of Vanilla Sky? I don't remember the whole gist of whats going on, if I remember right, he's dreaming but doesn't realize it until later. He gets in his car on the way to work in Manhattan and he doesn't see anyone on the streets. Long story short, he drives around a bit, even to Time Square and the streets are empty at 9 or 10am. It creates this feeling of surrealism that indicates some underlying reality of the main character of feeling alone but alive, living but without human connection, which if we think about it is at the root of why we live, for the connections with others in this life.

I've always loved that feeling. I can't quite explain why but there is something validating about driving the streets late at night and getting gas at a station alone, without a car in the lot. When you are on the city streets, especially between 2-4am, you hardly see a soul. It's almost as if there is this vast concrete jungle for you to explore on your own. I used to go up to my college campus at 3 or 4am to study for tests. Being the idiot I am, I would often freak out all night about the coming test, not able to sleep but not studying either, and then at 2 or 3 I'd realize I need to study and drive up to campus and study at the library that was open 24 hours. Those were some of my favorite nights, studying aside. I went to a campus with 30+ thousand students, so it was big. The library was somewhat centrally located and though there was parking close by, it became teacher parking after 7am and since I often couldn't be bothered to re-park my car later, I often parked further in the normal student parking lot. I loved that walk. It was probably 400 meters to the library and there were lamp poles but they were old and gave off a ghostly light. I loved the feeling of being surrounded by the quiet shadows of still buildings, themselves sleeping off the burdens of the prior day. Occasionally, I'd even detour through the middle of campus to the library so that I could bask in this solitude even longer.

All of this brings me to one of my favorite poems. Though many of these nights are filled with different intervals on the spectrum of emotion, there is in many of them a deep loneliness, as shown through the Vanilla Sky analogy, not so much of sadness, but of a disconnect between myself and the rest of society, and more importantly with those with which I long to connect. Part of the reason I love the nights is because often it is where and when I feel most at home. There is no pressure, no one asking for my help, no need of my labor, time or emotional strength. It is just me. There is great relief and even a small internal leap of joy in these moments, where the rest of the world shuts down and I can take care of my needs alone. This is juxtaposed to the feeling of simultaneously desiring to share this relief and joy with someone, someone who cannot be there because there very presence would alter the demand on yourself.

There is a lesser known poem by the great Robert Frost called "Acquainted With The Night." Here it is:

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain—and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

One luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. 

I have been one acquainted with the night.

Ahh... so delicious! Love it! That guy is a genius, and might I add Bipolar. 

So this is a complete side-note but here are my favorite writers, strictly based on their writing styles and narrative alone.:

                   Charles Dickens - Depression

                   Ernest Hemingway - Bipolar

                   Edgar Allen Poe - Bipolar

                   Robert Frost - Bipolar

                   Victor Hugo- Bipolar

                   Mark Twain- Bipolar

                   William Shakespeare- perhaps not, but had a lot of insight into the instability of the mind.

I didn't discover this until one day when I was researching Ernest Hemingway's life out of curiosity.

Back to the task at hand... acquainted with the night. It's difficult sometimes to avoid staying up when you're heart and mind seem to long for it so fully. In my mind I know tomorrow I will pay for it. That tomorrow will be a better day if I just pop some meds to sleep and lay on my pillow until it takes affect on my mind. A greater part of me longs so much more for that freedom from responsibility and duty. Yet, tomorrow will come. It always does. Then, like the detox from a drug, those midnight highs are easily forgotten under the burden that comes with the dawning day. Do I heed the thought of tomorrow or do I live in the moment of tonight? I know the smart choice. I know the right choice. I also know the choice I made tonight. It's almost 2am. I guess the alternate lesson is that it's never too late to make a new choice. I better get going to bed. I bid thee ado. (Please excuse the wording. I've been watching Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet while writing this. Love it!)