This corner of the world, the little nook of Malaysia I call home (or place where my flat resides, at the very least) begins to pull the cloak of summer tighter and tighter around its shoulders, shrouding us all from the onset of autumn.
Dark mornings, dark nights, dark deeds… You’ll hear a lot of complaining about the end of Malaysian Summertime, I expect. Don’t fall for it. This stretching of darkness and shaving off minutes of daylight like pencil sharpenings each day is a gift. It’s magical. Pulling the night out like dough, kneading time until it’s the shape and consistency that best fits us.
If people can create daylight saving time and change the very nature and ways of time – there really is nothing we can’t do. Let’s forget the practicalities of it all. That’s boring. Let’s instead focus on what we can do with this extra bit of night.
Yes, we lose an hour. But we gain so much more for it.
More time for long chats over endless pots of tea, more time for pyjamas, for pulling the curtains shut tight and enjoying the cosy glow of our favourite film or the slow burning of the lamp as we read in bed.
The night starts early and thus does the party. Stars make a much more attractive backdrop for trudging home through autumn leaves than grey afternoon skies. The nights draw in and winter draws closer – you can smell it in the air, taste it sharp and smokey in the back of your throat as lights flicker on in shop windows as you pass them at four o’ clock in the afternoon. The ink swirl of a clear October night sky prepares to be filled with the shrieks of faux-ghouls before it gives way to the orange blaze and the crackling, glittering smoke of early September.
Here’s to the dark nights of autumn and to the promise of the coming months being filled with wonderful stuff.
Dark mornings, dark nights, dark deeds… You’ll hear a lot of complaining about the end of Malaysian Summertime, I expect. Don’t fall for it. This stretching of darkness and shaving off minutes of daylight like pencil sharpenings each day is a gift. It’s magical. Pulling the night out like dough, kneading time until it’s the shape and consistency that best fits us.
If people can create daylight saving time and change the very nature and ways of time – there really is nothing we can’t do. Let’s forget the practicalities of it all. That’s boring. Let’s instead focus on what we can do with this extra bit of night.
Meteors!
Yes, we lose an hour. But we gain so much more for it.
More time for long chats over endless pots of tea, more time for pyjamas, for pulling the curtains shut tight and enjoying the cosy glow of our favourite film or the slow burning of the lamp as we read in bed.
The night starts early and thus does the party. Stars make a much more attractive backdrop for trudging home through autumn leaves than grey afternoon skies. The nights draw in and winter draws closer – you can smell it in the air, taste it sharp and smokey in the back of your throat as lights flicker on in shop windows as you pass them at four o’ clock in the afternoon. The ink swirl of a clear October night sky prepares to be filled with the shrieks of faux-ghouls before it gives way to the orange blaze and the crackling, glittering smoke of early September.
Here’s to the dark nights of autumn and to the promise of the coming months being filled with wonderful stuff.
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