August 14, 2007
Don't Hide Your Light Under a Bush
I looked out my bedroom window last night as I was getting ready for bed and saw the white-blue solar lights on my cone-colored fir in the garden below. Several people had asked me over the last few months, “Are those Christmas lights?”
My husband usually responded, “Those are Solstice lights.”
I then would sweep out the clutter of images, religious, kitsch, or otherwise. “Those are my solar lights!” I’d say.
Solar lights are just the coolest thing. They are connected to a miniature solar panel that attaches to a spike that you stick into the ground. Their shiny, specially coated surfaces collect solar energy all day long. As soon as the sun goes down, a light sensor tells the lights to turn on, and the effect is a magical, non-linear, brightening of tiny ice bulbs as each string gets the signal at a different time and slowly glows with life. It thrills me every time I look out the window and see them glowing there. I am creating a beautiful night garden and using the natural energy of the sun.
I had never planned to leave the lights up all year. The string of lights connected to each panel is only about seven feet long. I had to stick three strings on my small fir to cover it. Three strings means three little black solar panels that must be pointed toward the sun. After several tries, I placed all three panels so that they received enough winter sun to turn on the lights. It was harder than I thought in the winter garden where deciduous branches are denuded of leaves and perennials have died back to the ground. I had no interest in moving the panels around come spring, chasing the sun as it shifts in the sky with the change of season, not to mention trying to avoid the growing, ever changing garden. I also knew in my heart that I am a klutz in the garden (ask my hubby how many times he has repaired or replaced sprinkler heads because my big foot has crushed them). The image of me stepping on the poor little panels hidden behind various greenery and breaking them into tiny bits tore my heart asunder.
Then I began to procrastinate. Every couple of weeks, I told myself to take down the lights, and then proceeded to not do it. Suddenly, it was May, and people began to ask me about the lights. At first it was the confused, “Are those Christmas lights?” I would try to answer the question, but found I didn’t know the answer. I mentioned my dilemma casually to a neighbor across the greenway from me. She said, “Oh, I love those lights. I can look out my window and see them!”
You mean, someone was actually enjoying these lights in June? They weren’t just for December when special lighting effects were expected? I began to see that these lights filled a special nitch: They were subtle, and thereby, unexpected; when discovered, they were delightful; and when explored, they were found to use only the energy nature provided.
My inner procrastinator sighed with relief. But, as is natural in gardens, green things grew. The yarrow arched over the solar panels dripping them with shade, and the black-eyed susans quarreled with them about their sun access rights. One by one, the strings of lights began to wink out, subtly at first, and then more boldly. I would look out my dining room window and have to crane my neck to find the one string that was still lit. Last week, I finally cleared away the underbrush and set each solar panel in a new and sunny location. Last night, as I looked out my window, I saw a myriad of lights glowing. So what if people thought they were Christmas lights. I knew what they were. And then I heard it. The hum of a million crickets. They sounded just like the jingle of a million tiny bells. Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching! Ching, ching, ching, ching, ching! Sleigh bells, I thought. Those folks were right. These were Christmas lights. And Solstice lights. And Hannukah candles. But they were also Fourth of July fireworks and bright Easter eggs. They were all those things. They were beautiful and they lit up the night with tiny flames of joy.