The thing is, I’ve never really lived in a world without the sun. True, I have definitely lived (and am living in) a time of night. The sun is not showing its face. The earth is cold. I cannot see what is happening. I am rendered powerless. And sometimes I cry and lament and grieve the sun that I remember. Sometimes I wonder if it is – or ever was – real. All I can touch is cold and dark and shrouded, all I hope for is lost in blackness, my horizon disappeared. Every minute I turn my face towards the East, hoping, watching, waiting. Darkness seems to assault me again and again. And again. 

Surely, I say to myself, it was just a dream! Those who hope in the sun are delusional. Can they not see the blackness around them? Are they not willing to acknowledge that their world has shrunk down to the tiny radius around them – the wonders of the day have been lost, and, no matter how hard we try or hope or even believe, we cannot seem to make it come.

And many of us have now given up on the hope of day. It has been too long. No one we know has ever seen a sunrise. It is but a fairytale we tell to children. In the long, cold, darkness, we have learnt to make our own small versions of the sun – lighting candles, and even campfires. We huddle around them like moths, singing songs of worship to the candlelight, YOLOing like cicadas who know we will not live to see the dawn. These, we guard, because our lives depend upon them. Until some cold wind comes and extinguishes them. 

And sometimes in the darkness I find myself able to sing songs about the sun. Sometimes I talk to others who believe that the dawn is coming, who believe in the existence of day. Some of these are those who are holding candles and some, like me, have lost them. Some have even cast them aside willingly, in preparation and expectation of living by daylight. Sometimes, I hold hands with them, joining my trembling heart to their stronger ones, and I recite verses that promise the end of the darkness, as salty rivers run down my cheek and neck. Sometimes, something inside of me inexplicably lights up and I feel, somehow, that I am bathed in sunlight.

And then sometimes I wake from this reverie, overwhelmed by the reality of the darkness, stunned by the pain of it, and I fall to the ground in despair. I declare that the sun has never been. I have hoped and prayed and sung about the dawn, and it has not come. The darkness has only encroached farther, become even darker. And, screaming visceral shrieks of fury and betrayal, I claw at the carpet and weep bitterly. And I curse the sun.

And yet, the thing is, I’ve never really lived in a world without the sun. As I am hoping, singing, praying, weeping -even cursing – the sun itself is the centrifugal force upon which my whole world turns. I cannot see it. I cannot sense it, but sometimes, I am willing admit that it is there, creating a gravitational pull that keeps this whole planet in orbit. Despite the coldness of the night, despite the waves of abandonment that crash over me, it is the sun that keeps the ground from freezing over. Although hidden from my view, a part of me is willing to believe it burns continuously, giving energy to every plant and underwater organism that creates oxygen that allows me to breathe. And my lungs, whether they are singing or whether they are screaming, are swallowing air that has been made possible by the sun.

And my hope, my belief, my cajoling, my despair does not affect the way the sun moves, does not change it – because it is not dependant upon me.  How humbling, how painful, how freeing to realise this! As much as I love or I hate it, as much as I protest or scream, whether or not I can see it, the sun has been and will be the source of all the life I’ve ever known. And, sometimes, I allow myself to be brought to my knees. I admit that I am not the source, that the sun is the centre. I acknowledge that, although my candle is gone, although I cannot see the path ahead, that the ground all around me is not frozen, that the air I breathe continues to support life in my lungs, that it is possible that a sunrise, which I have never seen, and do not control, is coming. 

And I place my hands in the hands of others who also wait with hope for the end of the darkness. And we turn our heads towards the inky blackness of the East. And we wait for the dawn.