This memoir is wonderfully written,
beautifully arranged, and a heart-wrenching but hopeful masterpiece.
"Something is afoot within me
that I do not understand, the breaking of a contract that I thought could not
be broken, a slow perverting of my substance."
Anna was living a pleasantly
ordinary life, working for the British government, when she started to develop
her sensitivity
to light. At first, her face felt like it was burning whenever she
was in front of the computer. Soon this progressed to intolerance of artificial
lights, then of sunlight itself. The reaction soon spread to her whole body.
Now, when her symptoms are at their worst, she must spend months on end in a
dark room covering window and door cracks, and mummified in layers of
light-protectant clothing.
She spent her days in the dark
talking to people on the phone, watching TV during short periods out of her
blacked-out room by looking at its reflection in a mirror, making word games to
keep herself occupied, but usually she got through audio books.
Lyndsey discovered she could go out
for a walk at dawn and dusk for about an hour without it affecting her skin,
and her husband made a covering of black felt for the back of the car so they
can drive somewhere else, such as a forest, during daylight hours, ready for a
sunset walk.
Despite everything, Anna's husband
named Pete stays around with her. Pete brings some light, although only of the
emotional kind, into her life. She feels she should leave him, but is incapable
of doing so unless he asks her to go – and thus far, he has not. "That is
the miracle that I live with, every day," she writes.
With gorgeous, lyrical prose, Anna
brings us into the dark with her, a place where we are able to see the true
value of love and the world.
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