Tracing the Dark

I spent an hour tonight trying to untangle a string of fairy lights that had knotted themselves into a tight, impossible ball in the back of my closet. My fingers were clumsy, and for a while, I was just pulling at random loops, making the mess worse. But then I stopped. I turned off the overhead lamp and just let the faint glow from the hallway guide my hands. Without the glare of the room, I could actually see the path the wire needed to take. It made me think about how often we try to force our way through the dark, rushing to find a solution when we are frustrated. We treat the shadows like an enemy, something to be banished at all costs. But maybe the dark isn’t meant to be fought. Maybe it is just a different kind of space, one that asks us to move a little slower and trust our hands to find the way when our eyes can no longer lead.

Hugo Baptista has captured this feeling perfectly in his work titled Self. It feels like a quiet conversation between a person and the vast, empty night. Does the darkness ever feel like a companion to you?