SWEET SUNRISE

Sunrise.

After many years of having to drag my reluctant carcass from the sack, always as late as possible, and for the next two hours ply it with strong doses of caffeine—I now get up, on my own, willingly, without threat or cajoling, in time to see that first hint of light in the eastern darkness and say: Hey, buddy…what took you so long?

Who wudda thunk!

What's more I like being up early, before the sun. I truly enjoy watching night turn into day, and love the soft but dramatic transition of the sun's rebirth. For me, dawns are almost spiritual.

Moreover, I'm practically on a first-name basis with the neighborhood squirrels who seldom beat me in making that first reconnoiter around the yard. Moon the dog goes off on her own business as I and the resident bushytails exchanged pleasantries, while cardinals churt from the tangles and a robin begins tuning up for the soon-to-rise sun.

Now I sip and savor coffee instead of depending on it to start my heart.

For the past couple of days I've been working at my desk and filling every other minute when I wasn't with outdoor chores—puttering about the cottage, raking and cleaning the yard, preparing planting beds, and occasionally just sitting in the rocking chair on the deck watching the river hurry past. And yes, for those of you who'd like an update, the river is still going down, maybe two feet yesterday, though there's yet five or so feet remaining before it reaches normal pool. Bottom line, though, is the high-water threat has, for now, passed.

Today is supposed to be clear, bright sun, temperatures in the low-60s. At the moment it is 39˚F. The Canada geese out on the river are making an awful racket, as the sun varnishes the sycamores along the far bank with golden light. Moon and I have been up for a couple of hours, trying not to wake Myladylove who always sleeps in on her day off.

There's still some frost on the greening grass and piles of leaves. Later today, after they've dried out a bit, I'll load the leaves in the wheelbarrow and dump them on the compost pile. I'm hacked off because, when I initially stepped out before first light, I realized I'd forgotten to take the suet cakes and their wire holders down and place them in secure overnight storage in the metal cans where I keep the rest of the bird foods…and that the marauding raccoon, making its usual rounds, apparently noticed my error and stole suet, cage, and chain hanger. The whole shebang is missing, which makes it two for the year, drat it!

Still, morning has come again. A new day. I'm still here. The sun is up, the temperature is rising, the river is falling, flowers are blooming, and the birds are singing. Plus, there's another—third—cup of good fresh coffee awaiting in the pot. What more can a man ask?

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EARLY TO RISE…

I didn’t used to be a morning person. Certainly not an early-morning person. Though not much of a sleeper, either. Stay up ‘til three or four a.m., hit the sack for a few hours, get up mid-morning and go. That was my way, my natural circadian rhythm. Four or five hours of sleep, maximum. Oh, I arose early when I had to—even before dawn, if necessary—for things such as fishing trips, squirrels hunts, or long, single-day road trips where I intended to cover 1000 miles or so before stopping; though just as often, I’d launch these marathon drives the evening before, or even the noon before, drive all night, and meet the dawn somewhere on the road between Ohio and, say, Key West. All-nighters were always easy; it was getting to sleep I found difficult. When my father and I fished Lake Erie, I simply stayed up, drove us to the big lake so we arrived at dawn, fished all day, drove us back home, stayed up until well after midnight…then, went to bed. Going 36–48 hours without sleep was nothing. Give me five hours of sleep every twenty-four and I was fine; reduce that to four hours and about every two or three weeks I’d need a couple extra hours one night to sort of “fill up my charge.” Not so much an insomniac, rather a person apparently requiring less sleep. I still don’t need—or manage—more than five or six hours of sleep nightly…but I want to emphasize that word nightly. A few years ago, something inside me changed. Post-midnight habits faded. I found myself going to bed by 11:30 p.m., sometimes earlier! After decades of being nocturnal I became diurnal. Instead of awakening in the morning, I began preceding the dawn. Now I actually see the sunrise on a daily basis. Amazing. What caused this fundamental switch? I have no idea—it just happened…and virtually overnight. I went from being a night owl to a sunrise aficionado. Friends and family were astonished. And as silly as it likely sounds to most of you, for me it was like discovering a whole new world—or at least a side of my personal world that had been heretofore hidden and unfamiliar. Nowadays, find myself waiting on daylight. I make my pot of coffee or tea, check email, let Moon the dog out for her morning constitutional. Usually I step outside myself to check the sky—look up at the stars twinkling overhead, or perhaps watch the moon slip through the tangle of sycamore limbs as it pours silvery light onto the river’s moving mirror. Every so often I glance to the east to see if that first subtle lifting of night can be detected. Sometimes there’s just the faintest streak of gold or rosé, a hairline crack in the wall of black, telling me the darkness has been broken and a new day is leaking out. The one thing I miss from my old ways are the midnight rambles. I used to regularly go for long walks in woods and fields, following trails and pathways, or just forging along as best I could. I enjoyed being by myself in these wild areas when the world was hushed. I have good night vision, so while I carried a flashlight, I almost never turned it on—preferring instead to allow my sight to adjust to the available light. You’d be surprised how well you can actually see sometimes. I’ve watched rabbits dance in the moonlight and foxes in a short-grass prairie pounce on mice and voles. So what have I learned? Well, that dawns are indeed for early birds—singing, sleepily at first, as if they need to tune up and find their voice—then louder. Many begin arriving at the feeders while it is still more dark than light. I hear others fluttering overhead long before I can distinguish more than their passing silhouettes. Then the geese are apt to start honking…which usually sets off the blue heron. The cacophony probably gets every small creature along the riverbank stirring. About this same time the squirrels appear. There’s a hole in the top of the huge sycamore by the drive that usually holds four or five gray squirrels, and one after another they pop out and begin following their tree-top pathways toward the cottage and the ration of seeds and cracked corn they know awaits. That’s my signal to call my dog and head back inside, allow them to enjoy their breakfast. I never thought I'd say this—but I really like mornings.

SUNDAY MORNING

Sunday morning. But not yet a “sun” day—though by the look of things, that’s what will soon occur. For now, however, it is still dark, still early, with only a faint glow to the east and a wash of stars overhead. I send the dog out with an admonition to stay in the yard. Then I head back into the kitchen and make a pot of coffee—the first coffee I’ve made in several weeks. For whatever reason, I shift between coffee and tea as my morning drink, sometimes alternating back and forth almost daily, though usually staying with one or the other for a week or two before switching back. This seemed like a coffee morning. It takes only a few minutes to boil a kettle of water, pour it over the ground coffee, wait the proper time, and push the plunger in the French press. Between these small tasks I kept peering out the front-room window, keeping tabs on both the dog and the dawn; the former uncharacteristically followed my orders, the latter heeded only the effects of planetary rotation. With mug of hot coffee in hand, I stepped outside, onto the deck. Cold, a brisk 22-degrees according to the thermometer by the front door. The half-disc moon, bright and silvery, was sneaking westward through the skeletal tops of the sycamores across the river. The river itself, down a couple of feet from a few days ago, was an opaque greenish-brown in the burgeoning light. I checked the seed feeders, and suet cadges—full enough—then dipped a scoop of cracked corn from the bin on the deck, and scattered this golden breakfast out for the sparrows and doves and cardinals that I knew would soon be arriving. A lone Canada goose came hustling downriver, honking loudly with every wingbeat. I’d heard a flock of geese go over while I was making my coffee. Perhaps this straggler simply overslept and missed the pre-dawn departure flight with his buddies. In my experience, there’s usually one invariably tardy member of any group—whether we’re talking people or geese. The sun was up now and starting to varnish the ranks of leaning sycamores along the river. This wasn’t one of those spectacularly colorful dawns, where the eastern sky is filled with pink and orange, purple and turquoise, and a dozen hues in between; just the ordinary miracle of another morning, one more day in our unknown allotment, a day to use as we see fit. Nevertheless, all days and dawns are special, and the white-barked sycamore trunks and crowns glowed a rich gold in the new-born light, a victory gift of light over darkness. The light had stirred the birds. Titmice were whistling, and cardinals. Several nuthatches were already on the big box elder by the front door, yank-yanking in nasal glee. A Carolina wren was tuning up from the cedar thicket. The feeders began serving their first customers. Sunday mornings seem especially holy to me. I grew up in a church-going family, and we went to services every Sunday morning. I don’t go as often nowadays as I should…and I not only feel guilty about that lapse, but I miss it when I fail to attend. I love the old hymns. Love the quiet warmth of prayer, and the message of hope eternal in the sermon. I love just being in the sacred space of the building itself. Life is such a wondrous gift, even when things are hard and we’re struggling with pains and troubles. Each new day is precious. I know this every time I stand on my little piece of riverbank and watch the sparkle of morning light on the water, or see the golden sun reflecting off the sycamores. My own heart soars with the traveling geese and sings with the bright music of dawn’s birds. I am so very blessed. So I say this before Almighty God, as deeply and honestly as I know how, fully aware that I'm unworthy of such treasures, grateful and humbled almost to tears…thank you.

IN THE PINK!

Today we are “in the pink”—at least that’s how we began the morning’s first minutes. Odd as it may sound, most mornings I keep track of the day’s arrival by actually looking west, across the river, where ranks of white-barked sycamore lean over the water in thoughtful vigilance. Their high tops, intricately interlaced like the finest pale-ivory netsuke carvings, catch the initial light. Typically, this reflected light appears as a rich golden varnish. Today, however, the watchful trees seemed to be blushing—their normal warm yellow replaced by a light rosé. I half-arose, stretched over the breakfast table, and craned around to where I could look back to the east. What a sight! Above the hill, dawn’s earliest light was slipping through the tangled branches of the walnut and hackberry along the drive, shimmering like a sensuous nymph in shiny pink satin. The hues were soft but sure, not at all weak or washed out, and of a shade that reminded me of an ancient rosebush that rambled along the front fence at my parents’ home. A dawn glowing pink and flushed as a healthy newborn fresh from the night’s dark womb. A dawn bursting with potential and possibility. A dawn the color of cotton candy…and just as sweet a treasure.