Reporter’s Notebook | Somewhere in the middle of the night

By Nicholas House | May 22, 2025 | Reporter's Notebook |

By Nicholas House
Navajo Times

Some conversations don’t start with a point. They meander. They stumble. They double back and laugh at themselves for doing so. They land where they want to, not where you intended.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about those nights, the ones that don’t quite ask to be remembered but stay with you anyway. Maybe it’s a familiar voice saying something new. Maybe it’s silence that suddenly feels heavier than usual. Or maybe it’s just the realization that someone, somewhere, is letting you in more than they mean to.

It’s funny how soft things don’t always show up in soft ways. Sometimes they arrive in half-baked jokes. Other times it’s a 1 a.m. memory that unravels slowly, like someone’s been holding it in their back pocket for years, waiting for the right moment to drop it. And maybe the right moment never really comes, but we say it anyway.

I’ve learned that people show their truths in bits and glimmers. Not with grand declarations, but in tiny reveals, like stars sneaking into the sky. You just have to be looking long enough to catch it.

I say this not with urgency, but with a quiet hope: check in on someone. Even the ones who seem to always bounce back. Especially them. Because somewhere in their orbit might be something they haven’t figured out how to say yet.

Maybe it’s nothing. Maybe it’s everything.

I’m not writing this to solve anything. I just think some nights deserve to be written down, not for clarity, but for comfort. For the record. For the chance that someone might read it and feel a little more seen. Or maybe recognized, in a way they didn’t expect.

So, if this sounds vaguely familiar, it might be. And if it doesn’t, that’s OK too.

Not everything has to be loud to be real.