Susan and I often have a conversation that we have repeated in various forms over many years. She asks me, “How can you sleep with the light on.” I respond, “All I have to do is close my eyes. It gets dark when I close my eyes.” One of the gifts of my life is that I have found it easy to go to sleep. Like all people I occasionally have times when it is hard to go to sleep, but they are relatively rare. Most of the time, I can nap when I have time and have no trouble falling asleep when I go to bed at night.

I have friends and relatives who have put a great deal of effort into making bedrooms into a place more conducive to sleep for them. They invest in blackout shades, put effort into obtaining silent air handling equipment for furnaces, purchase white noise machines, and obtain expensive mattresses and sheets. I can pretty much fall asleep on any bed with light streaming through the windows and the sounds of the neighbor’s pets and coyotes singing in the distance. Other people who remain awake after I’ve gone to sleep don’t bother me. Of course, I have the advantage of living in a rural area without excessive light pollution and little industrial noise. And this time of the year it gets dark early, so things are pretty conducive to sleep.

I guess I’ve always found that the best cure for insomnia is to be really tired. Then again, maybe I’ve not really suffered from insomnia. When I am awake, I tend to get out of bed and do something that interests me, like reading a book or writing my journal. I don’t find myself awake in bed very often.

Despite having a reputation for being able to sleep with the lights on, I really enjoy darkness. When I rise in the night, I usually don’t turn on any lights. I wait for my eyes to adjust and walk slowly. Actually, there are lots of light sources in our home, even at night with all of the lights turned off. Light from street lamps comes through windows. Appliances have lights on them. Moonlight often streams through the kitchen skylight. For years I have led night hikes for campers. I teach them about using natural light sources and allowing one’s eyes to dilate. I demonstrate how if you use a flashlight, all you can see is what is in the circle of light provided by the device. If you turn off your flashlight and give your eyes time to adjust, you can see a much broader area. In those conditions, you are less likely to be surprised by an obstacle on the path.

I seem to have inherited or developed or been blessed with a pleasing combination. I’m not afraid of the dark and I can sleep with the lights on. I’m not sure that these qualities, if that is what they can be called, give me any advantage over others. I know people who sleep with blackout shades in sound-insulated bedrooms who are perfectly happy and well adjusted. I’m not somehow more healthy than those who sleep eight hours without interruption and wouldn’t think of rising in the middle of the night. I do seem to have less trouble dealing with an interruption of my sleep than some folks. If I am tired enough, there is no problem going back to sleep after being awakened. That quality served me well during the years when I frequently was awakened by a phone call in the night and had to get up, get dressed, and respond to an emergency. I pretty much don’t do that any more, but I suffered no ill effects from decades of being on call as a first responder.

I’m not good with languages and although I’ve had lots of friends with Scandinavian backgrounds, words in Norwegian or Danish don’t roll off of my tongue. I think, however, that the concept of friluftsliv, popularized by the plays and poems of Henrik Ibsen, is the concept that people can cultivate well being by being outdoors. The idea is that outdoor living restores the soul and strengthens the body. I don’t know if people from Scandinavia would agree, but I think that part of the restorative power of nature can be experienced at night. Being in touch with the cycles of light and dark is powerful in my experience. I absolutely love rising in the dark and going to a quiet place, perhaps a lake with my canoe or walk into an open field, and watching the predawn light emerge and the sunrise follow. I am learning in my new life stage in a new place a deeper appreciation of sunsets as well. Watching the light come and disappear is part of my way of experiencing friluftsliv.

In Italian a similar, though not the same, concept is “al fresco.” Literally meaning “in the fresh air,” the concept is often applied to dining. Eating al fresco is having a meal outdoors. One of the sweet things about the house where we now live is that I have a porch swing on the south side of the house and a picnic table on the north side. I can find a place to sit in the shade whenever it is warm outside and a place to sit in the sun when I need a little light to warm myself. I love to take a cup of tea outdoors.

I don’t sleep al fresco much these days. We have a camper with a comfortable bed. I haven’t been inclined to take a sleeping bag outside for a long time. Perhaps I’ve idealized the concept through years of separation, but my memories of camping trips where we slept outdoors under the stars are very positive.

Susan and I will probably continue to talk about sleeping with the lights on for many years. I have gone to bed earlier than she and risen earlier in the morning for half a century. It works for us. I don’t have to turn off the lights since she will do so after I nod off and I don’t need to turn on the lights in the morning when she is sleeping. We get along very well together.

And, we have decades of practice with silly conversations about whether or not her eyelids leak light. Mind don’t.