Without any particular effort or desire on my part, I have become a morning person.
It is a far cry from my younger years, when I worked at night by choice. On a Saturday or Sunday could easily sleep until noon.
Now, at a time when I rarely have any need to set an alarm or get up at a certain time, I awaken, lie for a while considering whether it is possible that I will go back to sleep,and then get up to greet another day.
Our house is perched on hillside overlooking the lake, and the bedroom is on the second floor. Next to the bedroom is a small room with two chairs separated by an old children’s school desk and a floor lamp.
We call it the reading room, but in the mornings it is where I sit nursing a cup of coffee and letting my mind wander as a new day takes shape. My wife usually is still asleep, and I sit quietly to try to avoid awakening her.
Everything is quiet. Not even the birds are stirring, and at this time of year, it is light well before the school bus runs.
The view from the reading room is of the upper part of the trees that grow in front of the house, the water, and the land on the far side of the slough.
The morning sort of sneaks up on me, even while I am looking. Perhaps that’s a metaphor for life in general.
At first light, the world in monochromatic. The trees, those just outside the window and those across the slough, a simply silhouettes. The open water and the sky are the color of tarnished silver. There are patches of water that reflect the trees along the shore, and it is difficult in the half-light to determine what are trees and what are reflections.
Across the way, at the end of a slough, a light blinks on, blinks off briefly, then on again in a night-long ritual. I know from having paddled past it that the light comes from a miniature lighthouse painted in the orange and blue colors of Auburn University.
A hummingbird levitates almost as high as the white oak tree in front of the house and then darts sharply away. Three ducks fly by in a hurry to get to somewhere.
Gradually, almost imperceptibly, colors emerge, the greens of the leaves, the colors of the house across the slough.
The sun rises behind our house, so we don’t see it appear over the horizon. What we see is the sun’s work. The sky overhead slowly turns blue; if there are any clouds, they are painted a tropical pink.
Soon enough the creation of a new day is completed; I am glad for having seen it.
The writer can be contacted at billatthelake@gmail.com
