275. Down with Darkness - Hollynn Huitt
I cry. I ugly cry. I cry and I laugh at myself for crying.
I’m easy to spot at a school gathering. I’m the one in dark glasses, or, if that’s not feasible, standing just off, avoiding eye contact, already dabbing at my definitely mascara-less eyelashes.
I cry. I ugly cry. I cry and I laugh at myself for crying because my dad is a crier, and when I was a kid, we teased him relentlessly. He cried at the back of auditoriums, at gymnastics meets, in the bleachers at baseball games. At my wedding, he stood up to give his speech, immediately began crying, and just sat back down without saying a word.
Turns out it’s genetic. I make jokes with those around me before any performance—I’m sorry in advance, ha ha ha. With practice, I’ve managed to contain my sudden rush of emotion to a violent eye water, with one exception. Of all the concerts, celebrations, and ceremonies I’ve attended as a parent, there’s nothing that gets me like our nursery school’s Lantern Festival and, more specifically, the song “Down with Darkness.”
Down with darkness,
Up with light.
Up with sunshine,
Down with night.
Each of us is one small light,
But together we shine bright.
Go away darkest, blackest night.
Go away. Give way to light.
Go away darkest, blackest night.
Go away. Give way to light.Every year, after we’ve been subject to the indignity of daylight savings and our sun begins setting at four in the afternoon, the children at our local nursery school begin singing this song in preparation for the Lantern Festival. One night in November, the preschoolers gather in the park after sunset to sing and march down main street with homemade lanterns. The older children (it’s an outdoors school for ages three to six) already know the song from the previous year. The younger children learn quickly, either from their peers or from their intrepid and musically accomplished leader, Kerstin, the director of the school.
The children sing many lovely songs, and their fluttery little voices (“Everyone a little louder!” Kerstin often urges) are very moving, but this one is their favorite. From the first strum on the guitar, the faces harden with determination. Their voices ring out in unison—at times, they even shout out. Little mittened fists pound into knees. They feel this song to their core.
I also feel this song to my core. You don’t have to be a parent to understand how much darker the world can seem once you have small people moving about in it. The kids are singing against the night—surely that’s all they can understand—and yet the conviction with which they sing makes me wonder. Do they actually know the challenge that lies before them—that they absolutely will encounter darkness and hardship firsthand, and they will meet it with determination? In that moment, in the park, their crayon-scribbled lanterns flickering, I believe their song with every fiber of my being. They are the light. Make way for light.
- Hollynn Huitt
