I have a great fondness for nighttime. The darkness of nighttime holds the excitement of stars and grit of dive bars and unclothed secrets that simply disappear when the sun awakens. I love the sounds of a winter night, everything seems suspended within a cloud, dulling the sharp screeches of tires and the sirens’ rhythmic fading and rising. Some of my clearest memories took place with only the moon to light their play.

blurry picture of streetlights and falling snow

I remember emerging from the movie theater to find the world sprinkled with snow, the air was full of snowflakes, a rarity in our town, and on a chaperoned date in fifth grade I was just sure it was a sign, that this eleven year old boy and I were meant to be together forever or at least until Spring. In some foggy back corner of my brain there’s a memory that took place at 4 A.M. in summertime, I was eight or nine lying on the carpet in the living room, fading in and out of sleep, catching bits and pieces of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and conversations between my mother and brother, which all felt like an elementary student’s acid trip–that movie is strange.

A memory I can still feel if I shut out everything else is swimming nude with a few of my friends at night in my backyard, at eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen years old. It never was some dirty thing, but more of a way to feel the rebellion of nudity with the comfort of darkness laid over our bodies like the same water we were swimming in. The most recent swim consisted of four or five girls in a swimming pool half naked with boys on the deck just five feet from us. And at some point one or two just jumped in to join us. Once their ride was there, us girls decide we just had to jump up (breasts flailing) and give them kisses before they left–it created excitement in your stomach just knowing your father might catch a glimpse and ground you for the rest of your fleeting childhood.

I have so many memories forever stuck in a dreamlike cloud. The late night rides to the store, windows and sunroof open, wind breezing in to meet our suntanned skin. Sneaking brews upstairs to make our eyelids hefty and laughs emptier. Frozen walks to the center of the road, catching snowflakes on cold beet colored cheeks. Secrets whispered on the swings, hanging suspended in the air until we swung out to meet them again. Ambulances arriving at eleven to take away an unconscious woman. Autumn nights brightened by a blazing fire-pit, and the warmth of alcohol swelling in your stomach. Watching the heat lightening, pretending it’s God’s night-light.

The sky is lightening up now, slowly but surely secrets and ambulances and fallen snowflakes are fading back to their rightful places in our memories.