In defense of the dark

In my apartment, I never use the big light.

You know what I mean by the big light.

It’s the overhead light. Stuck in the middle of the ceiling. Sometimes it looks like a boob, or a cake.

I don’t hold with people who use the big light. My parents were big light people, always coming into my room too early on Sunday mornings, flipping the big light on before yelling at me in Tagalog, a language I do not speak, to get ready for Mass.

The big light is invasive and unwelcome and, according to Mariah Carey, her mortal enemy. Who looks good under the big light? You’re always squinting under its glare, hoping it doesn’t reveal any bald spots you’ve been trying to conceal.

Is it just me, or is there something about being alive in 2025 that is like living under the big light? The big light will not shut the fuck off, no matter how many times you try.

The big light shines brightly on everyone in equal measure. Some of us look better under it than others. When I stand under a big light, I see nothing but shadows and enlarged pores.

Maybe you don’t look so terrible under the big light because, like Mariah Carey, you’ve already got light trained just so on your face so you look amazing. Maybe it’s a glow that comes from within, powered by confidence and inner strength and kindness. Or it is a literal ring light that you have on your person right now in which case you can bring it up to the stage so I can use it.

Not all light is the enemy. Golden hour light, that magical time right before sunset where everybody looks gorgeous and ripe. But the golden hour comes earlier every day, and its duration is shorter every day. If you’re not paying attention, you’ll miss it after it’s gone.

All the lamps in my apartment come on automatically at the same time every evening. They’re each plugged into smart switches that turn them on at sunset.

The last time the sun set after 7:00 pm in Chicago was two months ago in September. The end of summer and the last days of golden hours, those magical times before darkness fell and the sun made everybody look gorgeous and hydrated and kissable.

Today the sun set at 4:42 pm. Almost four hours ago.

There was no golden hour because the sky had been overcast all day. The sky took on the unappealing gray that you only see in the carpets of offices lit by fluorescent lighting. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. Today’s sunlight, such as it was, was my biggest opp, as the kids might say.

I should have been learning my lesson from the bears. Not just any group of bears but the brown bears. Specifically the ones who live in Katmai National Park in Alaska. They spend the summers and autumns gorging themselves silly on fresh sockeye salmon, competing for the best spots and the biggest fish and the most fish. Weeks go by, and they eat and they squabble, and they nap, and they look after their cubs under the worshipful gaze of us people who track their fat progress via social media and live web cams.

This season of bounty comes to its glorious peak in what we know as Fat Bear Week, when citizens of the internet vote on which bears are the fattest, and therefore deserving of the title of Fattest Bear. Biggest Chonk. Roundest Mammalian Wonder.

I don’t believe the bears actually get a reward or anything from the organizers. I think they just get left alone to finish their feasting in peace. Make their way up into the mountains. Find their dens, Fluff their pillows (which could be flat rocks or leaves or something) and settle down for a well deserved season of hibernation.

Can you imagine how restful that might be? Doesn’t it sound like a dream? A warm, safe place. Made just for you to sleep and dream in the dark. If you’re a lady bear, you may actually give birth during hibernation, at which point all the fat you gained from all that summertime salmon you ate will enable you to produce milk to feed your cubs. That’s so efficient! That also seems to be a complicated maneuver that needs to take place in silence and comfort and dark.

No big light to distract mama bear from the sounds of her cubs snuffling.

No big light to distract us from the rest that we all require after living through a terrible year.

Maybe to you it sounds like surrender, but I disagree. I welcome the dark. Not only because I don’t need to see the imperfections in my skin, in my diet, in my life. I already know what they are. I’m just tired of thinking about them. I’m tired of the ways in which I’ve failed. Tired of the body I can barely keep alive. The friends I’ve alienated. The jobs I’ve failed to get.

I’m interested in new ways of being and thinking and acting and dreaming. I love to dream. I love to sleep. I sleep best in the dark.

Close your eyes.

Take a breath.

Flex your paws.

And say:

“I love to eat.”

“I love to sleep.”

“I love the dark.”

“I am a fat bear.”

Note: this essay was voted the winning essay in a show of applause by the audience.