Friday, January 4, 2008

Darkness Falls Across The Land

It's really dark out in the morning.

Weirdly dark. Eerily dark. Thickly dark.

The type of dark that makes it feel colder than it really is. Damper than it really is. Evil is going too far, but it is foreboding in a way.

As I was driving to work this morning, around 7:15 am, I noticed the darkness. This was mostly by contrast. As I was dropping onto Highway 26 (Sunset Freeway) I entered the vista tunnel. Normally the tunnel is dimly lit. It has banks and banks of lights but usually only one in five is illuminated. Today it was charged up like a dance floor. On its roof. Two out of every three lamps inside it were lit and lit brightly. It was noticeable. It made me feel like I was in a science fiction movie, lunging out of a spaceship's launch bay.

It also made the rest of the darkness that much deeper. I found myself struggling to see the painted lines on the highway. The fog line (although there was no fog) was obscured. It was like the pavement had crept up over the white lines and covered them like a thick, coarse, gravel blanket.

When I arrived to work and settled in I overheard my colleagues talking about the exact same thing. That made me pause. If I notice this, and my colleagues notice this then there's something about in the Portland metro area, isn't there?

I'm not even sure if this is a rant about the infrastructure or a rant about how much the morning is showing its dark. Regardless, it is there. The absence of light. I would like it to change.

2 comments:

steeplechase3k said...

I saw the same thing as I was headed to my indoor soccer game the other night. The Vista Ridge Tunnel has never been so bright in my 20+ years of livinf in the city.

e.a. said...

Ah, midwinter. I wish we could just center noon on when the sun was at it's apex and leave it at that rather than all this garbage about changing clocks etc. Than there wouldn't be any remarking of how dark it is in the morning or how light it is late. I could go for that.