I rode the ferry tonight and noticed again how odd the dark is. You’ll notice the adjacent tweets, that’s part of it, but I wanted to tell you a little story about the dark from a couple of decades ago.

I used to live up on the Divide in Montana, and there in a narrow valley it is truly dark on a dark moon night. When I left the cabin for the outhouse, once you close the door, you have to stand for a few minutes before you can see anything at all. Unless you have a flashlight. But actually, a flashlight makes things worse. The problem is that outside that little circle of light just ahead of your feet, there is nothing at all. At least that’s what your eyes tell you. It’s better to take the flashlight but not to use it. Stand in the utter dark for a few minutes, allow your eyes to adjust and you will find the “nothingness” suddenly has something in it. (The added benefit of handling the dark this way is that you don’t make yourself a target—the little circle of light means everything else on the mountain can see you but all you can see is that little patch of ground near your feet. )

I have a cheap little digital camera and when I was walking around the “sun” deck in the dark I thought I’d see what happened when I took pictures with and without the flash. Anyway, here are a few pictures—me playing with the dark.