Small Sun
The other day, I came out of the shower and the apartment was completely dark. It was seven at night. Up till very recently, that meant soft, golden sunlight, a sheen of sweat. But somehow, adjacent to my attention, the seasons shifted, and took me by surprise.
I groped my way to the light switch, then dripped all the way back to my room. I live in an L-shaped apartment. Both my room and the apartment’s sole restroom face the inner courtyard of the building and don’t get any natural light. At a ninety-degree angle along that same wall is the living room and kitchen. From the living room couch, I can see into a corner of my glowing room, which strains from the effort of trying to replicate the sun.
I live in a four-bedroom apartment, which I share with three guys. We didn’t know each other beforehand, but now we all get along well. Two of the larger rooms in the apartment face the main street, and therefore get the most natural light. For the privilege of space and light, they pay significantly more. I’m always knocking on their doors, asking to put my plants by their windows. The guys have always been nice about sharing their portion of sunlight, but the fact remains that I cannot live in that square patch of sun, on the floors of their rooms.
What this means is that there is no common area in my apartment where I can go to get some sunlight.
I come from Singapore, which sits slightly off the equator. We mainly have one season: hot. And then sometimes, another: hot and rainy. The sun rises and sets at approximately the same time every day, all year round. Back in Singapore, I used to work late. I would head to the gym when I woke, then spend all day at the office or on set. And then I’d grab dinner with my friends, go home, deal with emails, and write. Often, I’d work till 3, 4AM. I wouldn’t feel tired while working, even though the outside world was pitch dark; I’d feel a sense of quiet energy, and excitement. After that, I’d sleep deeply and wake up smiling.
What I mean to say is, I don’t understand why this is happening. It’s not as if I cannot function in the dark. But these days, in New York, I get tired by eight, and sleep fitfully for ten hours or so. When I wake, it’s as if a thick blanket has been draped over me; I’m bleary and confused. Even when the sun is high in the sky, the light feels dim, muted. It’s like there’s a dense haze pervading the atmosphere, filtering the light before it reaches us, though it seems to be a haze no one else can see. Oh, I’m tired. I’m tired all the time.
I asked an American friend about it. She shrugged: you get used to it.
It seems incomprehensible to me that swathes and swathes of people are accustomed to having daylight stolen from them, being unable to rely on the consistency of the sun. And yet they all proceed functionally. It is I who cannot adapt.
Since noticing the beginnings of seasonal change, I’ve gotten more and more artificial lights, plugged them into extension cords looped around my tiny room. A white light for my desk, string lights for the window, a small night light that doubles as an aroma diffuser, a floor lamp that spotlights my struggling orchid, trying against odds to bloom without sun. I’ve wired them all up to smart plugs, and every day at seven in the morning, they spring to life, simulating the sun rising at a time I’m accustomed to. I’ve optimistically named the floor lamp, which is my latest addition, Small Sun. When my Google Home turns everything on, it announces cheerily that the Small Sun is up. But still, I yawn throughout the day. I feel fine when I’m walking down the streets, but the minute I sit down somewhere, I feel my body yearning to be horizontal. How do people live like this?
Again, it’s not as if I cannot function after the sun sets. I can, I have. But it is as if my body knows it is being cheated of something, and now demands reparations. If not in the form of light, then in the respite of sleep. In the losing fight between my body and the sky, I am collateral damage. I charted my hours the other day: I spend half the week asleep now. For every hour in this weak sun, an hour dozing off at my desk, or in bed.
Perhaps the issue is that one cannot fight nature. This anger at the sky is more exhaustion than it’s worth. Are you still going on about that? the same friend asks. You really will feel much better if you just let yourself be. Your body needs the sleep, you can’t literally reject the laws of nature. Girl, she says, come on. Don’t make things harder for yourself.
Perhaps so. But what is a writer’s life, if not an exercise in optimism, naïveté? I’ve just ordered a light therapy lamp online, I track it on the map as it makes its way across the country to me. I’m ready for it to come, and change my life.
