Darkness gives, Light...

On the 30th of December, I was by the Norfolk coast in a very cold night. I took this picture of the sky, star and the moon (with a lighted house ruining the picture). It was a after 4:30pm.

Yesterday evening, arriving home later than usual, I noticed the dramatic change that has been coming over. There was light in the sky. I remembered then that the day before i shut the music off just to listen to the birds from my neighbours' gardens. It simply felt nice. I thought, hum, it's been dark for so long that I forgot it could only get lighter.

In all these years away from the tropical country, where the earliest darkness means 7pm at its worst, I've heard that people struggle to get over the common winter darkness. As we know there has even been denominated a winter syndrome explaining that we people need to be shed some sun light, with a dash of UV to feel right. What puzzles me, is that while we 'know', 'are aware', and most likely genetically informed by these geographical changes in the provision of sunlight, we react strongly to it. What could this possibly mean?

In the simplest way, i see this as body/nature beats enlightenment. This is a thing that I will applaud when it's recognised as such. The way I have experienced this darkness/lightness events have been in the rawest possible way. Coming from the tropics, where sun baths us constantly, where i had a skin colour rather than 'ill shade', I ignorantly took for granted that only in territories of the very north darkness falls without mercy for six months, and light for other six months. Nop, I didn't do my homework here.

My very first winter in England, I noticed the gradual darkening of the sky by October. Then I was told that by November/December it was going to be dark at 5:30pm. It then got dark by 4:30pm, and I felt so down and got the blues without noticing them. It took me a good three years or maybe even four years to semi-adapt to this. Now, I try to experience this just like walking into the tube during the rush-hour: it's something that just happens. Indeed, I've become rather rational about the phenomenon. Nonetheless, when light comes back, I've noticed that I go mental about it. Every single sunshine, I want to take it inside of me. And so, I think that I want to keep it this way. Don't want to be rational about this, only to the extent of wearing UV protection.