I look out my office window at 3:30 am and it is dark. I slipped out of bed without waking up my wife, got dressed and put the garbage at the road. At the office I find security fast asleep at his desk and I slip by him as well. I go through my email and smile at a few responses that will show that I sent it to them this early in the am. It's warm, it's dark and it's ... peaceful.
I have already accomplished more in the last half hour here than I did all day yesterday. Yesterday the phone was ringing, I had meeting after meeting, I had to run from one place to another, filled out a mountain of paperwork for some projects, answered more phone calls and finally made it home at 6:00 pm ... exhausted. I think I was still "wired" when I went to bed and could not sleep well. So here I am looking out of my office window at Las Vegas early in the morning.
Even Las Vegas looks peaceful at this hour of the morning. Soon more and more lights come on, more and more headlights go by and the world starts moving again. Peace is shattered by the driven.
A man was in my office this week telling me about his failing marriage. He still loves her but she wants him home more, wants him to make less money so he can give her more time, and simply wants him to change. He said to me, "I want to slow down. I want to spend more time with her but I just don't know how."
In Las Vegas, the city of Entertainment, I call for tickets to a show and find that the one I want to see on the day I want to see it has "gone dark." To "go dark" in stage-speak is to take time off, take a sabbatical, and to simply relax. There are singers and performers who will not talk for a whole day to rest their vocal chords. So I asked the man in my office, "When was the last time you and your wife went dark?" Frankie and I have, for almost 13 years now, taken one day a week off just to focus on each other. When the kids were in the house we would be together in the morning and then when the kids got home from school we would do something as a family. For us it cannot be Saturday or Sunday. (Don't try to reach me on Tuesday, I won't answer.)
It is now getting light outside so I ask you, "When was the last time you went dark?" Maybe it's time.