I've always been a night person. As long as I can remember. While other people praise the sun for helping us see things more clearly, I praise the dark for helping me see more. I think darkness and the night make visible all sorts of things we'd never see in the daytime (or things which don't even exist in the daytime). Shadows, deserted street corners, back alleys... They all reveal so much, if only we dare to look. I'm glad that someone has finally written a book about the wonders of the night and the dark. As you read Christopher Dewdney's Acquainted with the Night: Excursions Through the World After Dark (HarperCollins), "the night we're all familiar with will emerge as a fresh thing, deeper, fuller, older, younger, more evocative, more intimate, larger, more spectacular and, yes, more magical, and much more thrilling."

For those people who aren't as enamored with dark as I am, wintertime can make them antsy. This is especially the case here in Vancouver, where constant rain can make both night and day look dark and dreary. Some people dread West Coast Canadian winters so much that they just slip into hibernation mode—hoping it will all be over when they wake up. Few of these people seem to realise, though, that light and dark, day and night are not depressing in and of themselves. Weather, seasons, the hour of the day—how they affect us depend on what emotions we associate with them; and what emotions we associate with them depend on how we choose to perceive them. Carlyn Yandle, editor of Vancouver's Westender, thought she'd remind us to get back in touch with our British Columbia roots in an effort to help us appreciate the beauty of this dark time of year:

Looking for that dress to depress

by Carlyn Yandle

Westender, 25 November 2004, p. 6

I've been pestering a friend lately, a woman in the fashion design business, to imagine some sort of stylish-yet-cozy garment I could just dive into after work, or wear for a whole weekend, that doesn't scream 'clinical depression' if I'm spotted in it while at my mailbox in the lobby, or when company drops by unexpectedly. It should be more muu-muu than sweats, I tell her (two pieces being too much of a commitment, and anything with a waistline having too much structure), more sporty than schleppy, or retro but not too Mrs. Roper. More 'lounge party' than 'housework'. You know?

She flashed me an odd look, so I fessed up: What I'm looking for is some stylin' wallow-wear. Something to celebrate the wet, luminous days and the luxuriously long evenings—but not actually be out in it. That's when she started to look worried.

Okay, 'wallow' isn't quite the right word, either, but it's certainly not 'depressed' and all the negatives that go with that. It's a rich, velvety, deep purple state of mind. Exquisite, almost. It's the time of the season for hot baths, trancey music, candles and of course chocolate. The frenetic up-with-everything summer distractions have dimmed. Now, every slow movement is done in the moment, with intention: shuffling in old slippers; making a cuppa; knitting. Time enough to think about those we loved and lost to time. Or pick up the guitar.

The evenings are long enough now to see the long view. And what I've decided during my slightly groggy state is that the only sensible way to enjoy the raincoast winter is to get up when it's light and turn in when it's dark, and to hell with all the inky-black commuting and fighting for 10 square inches of floorspace on the SkyTrain. We were meant to sleep more in the dark months. Biorhythms and all that. Of course, this isn't practical, if one is still interested in being gainfully employed, but now is the time for these kinds of reflections.

This is the time of year the first Wet Coast people got down to the storytelling and the feasts and the dances in the cedar-smoky caverns of dark long houses, within the mists of the temperate rainforest. The spiritual season. They've been doing it for centuries, yet no one accuses the first cultures of being a bunch of depressives. Maybe the Haida have a more positive word for 'really getting into the gloom.'

The rest of us might be able to get into the dark season in a real way if we were still surrounded by a thirsty forest of glistening hemlocks and firs instead of cars and concrete, where rain is just a nuisance. At least we have Stanley Park for reference.

And instead of anything approaching a dusky long-house experience, we're hit with the hysterical, over-lit holiday-shopping-at-the-mall extravaganza. If there's anything that can push a person past the chance of a good wallow and into a real depression it's the clash of canned carols and competing consumer frenzies. No forest mists to cling to here in Anywhere USA. It's enough to make you run for the covers for a week or so. Or drink heavily.

Maybe the word I'm looking for is 'solace': "Comfort in grief; alleviation of grief or anxiety; also, that which relieves in distress; that which cheers or consoles; relief." Sounds a lot like 'solstice': "December 22, when the sun is at its southernmost point."

I could really get into the solace of the insulating fog, the dark solitude, the replenishing drizzle.

All I need is a good getup.

Well said, Carlyn!