On Writing: The Lonely Darkness vs. The Dark Alone
November 2, 2016 § 32 Comments

Sandra Miller (photo by Miranda Loud)
By Sandra A. Miller
Who better than a sleepless writer to explain the distinction between the Lonely Darkness and the Dark Alone? Allow me, if you will.
The Lonely Darkness is tossing in bed until your useless, 800-thread-count sheets turn warm with worry and that Tylenol PM bottle—despite you swearing off sleep aids—beckons from the bathroom shelf. The Lonely Darkness is 2:38 am and dreams you can’t return to and the cruel trick of a bone-tired body and a churning mind, hopelessly bad at getting back to sleep, but effortlessly good at remembering affronts and dread diseases that run in your family.
The Lonely Darkness is every fear you’ve had since the pregnancy stick showed a plus sign. It’s teenage children. Their college applications. Your sister’s cancer. That unwritten book. The Lonely Darkness is the insomniac’s principal’s office where you are furious to have been sent yet again, while fully aware that the true punishment will come in your workday, as sleep-deprivation tortures you into stupidity. The Lonely Darkness is your epic demon.
Then there’s The Dark Alone.
The Dark Alone finds you waking up in a house hushed with the silence of a sleeping family. You peek at the clock—5:12 am—and count forward on your fingers from 11:30 pm. What? Six hours if you round up! (And you always round up.) Energized by this rare sleep achievement, you roll out of bed and reach for your sweatpants dropped on the floor the night before. You slip them on in the searing darkness of your bedroom, and, still sightless, feel around for your Rhode Island sweatshirt hanging inside the closet door. If you’re lucky, you can extract two mismatched socks from the clean laundry pile in the corner. If not, you resort to yesterday’s stretched, slightly pungent ones on top of the hamper. Sometimes you even like those better.
Finally, wasting no time, you steal out of the bedroom where your husband, who has missed maybe a dozen nights of sleep in your 21 years together, will not wake up for two more hours. Although he’s spent some time in The Lonely Darkness, he knows nothing of The Dark Alone. This is your territory.
Downstairs you rinse out the only mug you will use at this hour—the cracked purple one your kids painted a decade ago at Clay Dreams—and brew your dark roast (the beans, the heat, the cool dash of cream) that will taste better than absolutely anything else you put to your lips all day. Nearly trippy with gratitude for sleep and caffeine, you will carry your mug to your office, set it on your desk, open your computer.
And there they are, the thoughts, seeded by quiet, watered by dark roast, they grow in the fertile soil of the morning hours. They thrive in The Dark Alone, not unlike the way plants require sun. They vine and flourish. They flower. They fruit.
In the Dark Alone you may only write for one hour, but it is always the most productive hour of your day when nothing comes between you and your words. No one’s worry or radio. No cellphone. No child. In these morning hours, you will be awed by the power of your ideas to bloom, bold and vibrant on the stalk of your genius, growing in size and strength, until all at once the sun, like a burglar, breaks through the crack between shade and window pane. Still tapping away, head bent to the sound of your inner voice, you try to ignore that thin band of brightness, but then you hear an alarm clock upstairs, then another. Soon a symphony of rap and radio and shower noises ensue while you rush to hold onto what is fast slipping away.
Minutes later the light is full up, cast across the to-do list on top of your inbox. Your daughter stumbles downstairs. “We’re out of cereal!” she shouts. And your son needs a ride to early band. Your husband, who only ever wears matching neutrals, wanders into your office. “Does this tie match?” he asks.
“Perfectly,” you assure him. And with those first words, the spell is fully shattered.
“What time did you get up?” he asks.
He winces when you tell him. He doesn’t understand.
With that, you kiss him good-bye, shut your computer, and step beyond the now blurred boundary of The Dark Alone. You toast a frozen waffle for your daughter. You tell your son you’ll drive him. You check your phone. You nibble a cracker. You look at the house, the mess, the clock. The darkness hid a hundred needs, the way the light spares nothing.
Already you miss the Dark Alone, your secret place of creation. You can only hope it will be there again tomorrow.
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Sandra Miller‘s essays, articles, and short stories have appeared in over 100 publications including The Boston Sunday Globe Magazine, Spirituality and Health, and Glamour Magazine which produced a short film called “Wait” based on one of her personal essays. Kerry Washington starred. You can find out more at SandraAMiller.com. Or, if you happen to be up at 4am, visit her blog, www.nightmath.com, where Sandra reckons with all things nocturnal.
Perfect distinction – yes, I can really relate to this!
Thanks MarinaSofia.
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I LOVE the Dark Alone, so much so that for the last ten years I purposely set my alarm and get up at 5 am to meditate, journal, write and just BE for that one magical hour.
Thanks for commenting Debra. We who love the Dark Alone know exactly what you mean.
Loved your essay. I see the Lonely Darkness more often than the Dark Alone, but I can relate to both. Nice piece and terrific terms.
Thanks Nancy. I am with you on the wrong balance of DA vs LD, but I’m trying to right that. I hope you do, too.
Thank you for this! I so related to my night before with wacky dreams and dreads, and those dark carve-out early mornings in front of my computer. I plan to visit nightmath.com for more.
Thanks for taking the time to write, Phyllis. I will look for you at 4am!
Stunning piece – I totally relate
Thanks Joanne.
Beautiful. I wish I had written this!
Thank you Sarah.
What a wonderful essay. I could imagine you writing in the morning before family wakes up. My writing time is after work, in the evening, with the house sometimes quiet, sometimes noisy. I’ve learned to work in all sorts of environments, a product of age and necessity.
Yes. We do what we can, and we adapt. Thanks for taking the time to comment.
I found this extraordinary – so beautifully written. The Dark Alone obviously works well for you. May it continue to embrace you in the wee hours.
Thank you for writing. the Dark Alone is my best space.
These days the Lonely Darkness rules; trouble getting to sleep, waking up three or four times a night and, finally, the best sleep of the night from
5.30 to 7.30 am. Occasionally, after midnight night, I give up the tossing and turning and trying to get to sleep, go to my computer, start writing and revel in a few hour of The Dark Alone. But I am tired the next day.
Your beautifully written article has inspired me to aim to try to reverse this scenario To get up earlier and not waste this precious opportunity of The Dark Alone.
Glad thisinspired you. I hope you make it work.
Fantastic. And truly a great distinction written out perfectly. LOVE this piece. And yes, I too am happiest at 5am, alone with my coffee and computer before sunrise and sound. We are kindred writers!
Yes. It seems so. Thanks for writing.
My dark alone is at night when the kids are asleep and the husband is working late. I’m not a morning person.
I’m enjoying some of that time now. Whatever works, right?
A beautiful essay, Sandra! I like how your voice rings with authority, with truth. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for taking the time to comment, Christina.
Three A.M. Reading your post in the dark alone. Alone with my silent cat companion. You so captured the essence. . .
Thank you!
I love this. I live alone now, but I can identify. I especially love how the dark shuts out the mess and the distractions.
Thanks you Sue. We need to not see the mess in order to create.
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