I've loved the word 'crepuscular' since I first encountered it while studying primate behaviour in Anthropology 1. Crepuscularity pertains to the edges of day and night, to dawn and dusk. Some creatures are diurnal, others nocturnal, and a few species are crepuscular. These are behavioural adaptations to temporal rather than spatial niches, a way of sharing environmental resources and reducing competition. Most primates, like us humans, are diurnal animals, but the lemurs of Madagascar cover all bases. They include diurnal, nocturnal, and crepuscular species.
For most of my life, I have been, unlike most primates, decidedly nocturnal. I pulled my first all-nighter at age nine, in fourth grade, to complete a report on Mt. McKinley, aka Denali. Maybe I'm part lemur, cross-cousins with the aye-aye rather than the chimpanzee. As the years progressed, I found that h
aving babies did not change me, but having teenagers has. I've begun inhabiting the dawn hours. I've become crepuscular.
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Our family now live in a big hundred-plus-year-old ramshackle house - every room needs something repairing or updating. And yet somehow our 4-story rambling wreck feels fuller than the much smaller houses where we lived in Hove or Durham, when our children were younger or nonexistent (when they were, as we would tell them, just 'twinkles in our eyes'). In those days, the kids always wanted to be near me and also near each other. I loved having them close (I still do). We tended to migrate en masse from one bit of the house to another, depending on the activity and the time of day. Thus we used all the rooms, but rarely were they all required at once. For instance one bedroom could have sufficed back then. We would put the children to bed in their own rooms for form's sake but I used to wake up in the morning in our enormous king size bed and without opening my eyes, reach out to count the number of heads on pillows. One, two, three. Oh yes, four, including the toes of the one lying upside down. They'd all sidle in during the course of the night.
Moreover, and this was crucial, the children went to bed earlier than we, their parents, did. Our reward for getting them bathed and pajamaed, brushed and storified, before the watershed, or at least not too long after, was having the house to ourselves for a few hours. We might only fall asleep on the sofa in front of the telly, or we might engage in riveting conversation (yes we might), or we might sit silently in our own spaces and work or read. The main thing was that after the kids' bedtimes, we had the place to ourselves and to each other. We surely suffered sleep deprivation, but we enjoyed some peace and quiet. Fair dos.
With teens we have learned that there is no set bedtime, especially in the summer holidays. However late I can stay up, they can stay up later. And their brains never shut down. At midnight as I struggle to code an interview, or to write a pithy paragraph, or to finish the newspaper, an offspring might wander in and want to discuss the nature of the relationship between philosophy and government, where the graph paper is kept, how to calculate the length of the hypotenuse, or whether the washing machine is free. Maybe there's a question about how their father and I got engaged, or the names of their great-grandparents. Always something interesting, not always something to which the answer is 'go ask your father.' And the parenting adage about being available to listen when your teens are ready to talk rings in my ears. I step away from the keyboard or page and ponder with the relevant child on the nature of Marxism and poetry or the location of the laundry detergent. I enjoy it. We laugh, I learn.
It means that peace and quiet are in short supply, or rather that their availability is uncertain, like sugar in wartime. On the plus side, these days husband and I can go out of an evening without the cost and kerfuffle of hiring a babysitter; still, I found myself missing those few silent hours in the house. And now I know where they are. By a happy accident (jet lag) I discovered the treasure trail to tranquility: dawn. Hence my attempt to cultivate a new, crepuscular niche.
By next week, however, with the arrival of the new academic year, I'm worried that this house will start to feel bigger and quieter. Our eldest child is leaving for university. We are so proud of him and happy for him. It's all good, I tell myself. That other parenting adage, about the days being long and the years short, has never ever seemed so true. Suddenly my yen for peace and quiet comes under the heading of 'be careful what you wish for'. I sigh a lot, and I cry. I must add Kleenex to our shopping list. I've just emptied the box on my desk (as well as my supply of truisms. I ought to take up cross-stitch.)
Coda: I have read that some animal behaviour specialists now argue that 'crepuscular' lemurs are in fact more accurately called 'cathemeral', or active both day and night. That might be a better description of me, too.
