I have been thinking about Midnight this weekend. Midnight. The Magical Hour, the Witching Hour....my favorite hour.
I don't think of it as a supernatural time nor do I associate it with witchcraft. It's more bewitching to me than anything. It's magical in nature, magical in the best sense.
Midnight is often associated with an end, an expiration, a closure. Cinderella's coach turns back into a pumpkin at midnight, her ball gown to tatters. Her wonderful, magical evening comes to an end as the clock strikes twelve. It was as if it never happened, as if her evening wasn't real. That is not what Midnight is for me.
I was out on my deck Friday night, at midnight. I was tired and ready for bed, the house asleep but for me. I sat in the darkness and started to think about who else might be awake, be outside enjoying the darkness. Would they be wondering who else was awake, wondering who else might have the same thoughts as they. I looked at the stars and wondered who else was looking at the same stars, I wondered if they shared my thoughts on the night's magic. What a world of possibility was in that thought. What if it was someone I knew? Someone I knew, looking at the stars, thinking about the magic before them. What an astonishing possibility that was for me.
I closed my eyes, collected my thoughts and imagined that in this magical hour I could send them to whomever might be out there. I sent my thoughts, filled with joy, filled with possibilities out into that magical darkness. I wonder where they went....
Midnight is a beginning. A new day begins at midnight. Everything starts all over again. A starting point yes, a door opening to something wonderful, something magical, something shared. It's a time full of mystery and possibilities. A time when everything you might wish for is possible. In that magical hour anything is possible as long as you believe.
And I do believe ...
Indeed.
1 comment:
Midnight is not what it used to be.
Now for me the witching hour simply means that I've spent too long reading or watching TV.
I remember when TV was asleep itself by 11:30, with the occasional long movie going beyond. BBC Radio 4 has (had?) a midnight newscast, the shipping forecast, then shutdown at 12:25, where they become a relay for the World Service.
Now everything just keeps going. The local airport virtually slows to a stop around 10pm to wake properly at 5am, but there's still traffic. You can still talk to someone from your bank at 2am if you have a problem, something you may need if you are buying gas on your way home from work that late.
When I was a kid all shops shut by 5:30, with just Off Licenses and Newsagents going till 9 or 10pm. Now the grocery stores are open 24/7. 24/7, a phrase that never was.
Still, when out and about at such a time I do look up to the stars, what can be seen beyond the sodium tinted clouds.
Since I was born at 6am BST, and I now live in CA, I wonder whether I should celebrate my birthday on the same day as I used to. This is another cause to midnight changing its meaning.
I know someone somewhere is awake. I know at midnight my parents are only just 2 hours out of bed in their morning, and their midnight is my afternoon.
If I lived out of the metro area, and midnight was still after the last drunk had staggered home from the village inn, then I may have a differnt view still, but now, midnight is simply a time I shouldn't be in.
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