An unwelcomed and unintended thing happened this morning. Lucy, in her endless quest for food, woke me up at her disgustingly usual time… 4:15am…. to give me “kisses” in the name of breakfast. Kisses really isn’t the right word as that describes an act of love and affection. Lucy’s tongue, however, acts much in the way my father used to threaten to throw ice water on me to make sure I got out of bed.
Luckily, Lucy is also fairly obedient to the command “go to bed”, so after asking her to do so, her tiny legs trotting from the big bed to her crate in the kitchen, I scooped up Scarlet to deposit her as well. This is our routine…. every morning…. at 4:15… I will say that despite such an untimely wake up call, especially for the summer, I usually am successful going back to sleep, at least until the 5:30 whimpering of mistakenly hungry puppies wakes me again. After satisfying their breakfast needs, we all snuggle back down for their post-breakfast nap that can often last until around 9. Psycho doglets…
This morning was no different. The girls fluffed the many blankets in their crate as I stumbled back to bed, half asleep, half wishing I had fish. I crawled back into bed and got comfortable.
…and got comfortable again…
….and again…
I flopped onto my stomach, readjusting the angle of my pillow. I sighed as I sank deeper into the comforter, into the pillows, into the awkward but wonderful position I arrange my legs to sleep face down.
And I lay there.
I flipped on to my back, this time with my right arm bent upwards, hand beneath my head. I popped one foot out of the covers. I turned onto my right side, my left side, back to my back. I crossed my ankles, uncrossed them, bent one knee while keeping the other straight. It didn’t seem to matter how I aligned my body; it was my mind that was in question.
I detest the nights when my body aches for sleep but my mind is aflutter with thought… not even deep thought. It would be tolerable if, in the moments of the night when all sane creatures are recharging for the day ahead, I was mulling over the innermost cogs of the universe or mentally drafting the next great social manifesto. Instead, I am plagued by the fleeting wonderings of no consequence: did I actually put my crochet hook back in the case last night or is it still wound in my new red hat? Do I have any extra crushed granite, or will I need to buy some at Lowe’s? And why is that 40 lbs. of crushed granite is so much heavier than 40 lbs. of potting soil???
After an hour and a half of tossing and pondering all things of little matter, the clock said 5:45… during the summer… on a holiday… a FEDERAL holiday… not even the postal workers are stirring… and I made the uncharacteristic decision to get up.
I wasn’t sure what to do at 5:45am. I thought about turning on the TV, but I was sure the crap that’s on at 5:45 is similar to the crap that was on at midnight when I went to bed. I thought about reading, but my eyes were still heavy despite the energetic leaps of my brain. I realized that the girls hadn’t made their breakfast whimpers yet, so I let them out of the crate and fed them.
I feed them outside on the back porch, and usually I step outside only long enough to make them sit before I present them with breakfast, eyes still blurry, senses not yet rebooted. But this morning, as the girls chomped away, I looked up.
Did you know that at 5:45am in July, there is actually a touch of light in the sky??? Crazy, huh! There are also exactly 2 stars left, one that is crazy bright. At one point I think I could have told you what that was, but that was many years ago. It was so still, so remarkably still. The usual hum of traffic in the distance was silenced. Not even the chirp of birds broke the stillness. Somewhere unbeknownst to me, a fountain was trickling. But beneath the trickling, beneath my breath, there was nothing. It was amazing.
I just stood there for a few minutes, taking in the stillness, taking in the silence, watching the redbud hint of a breeze. The only other time I have memory of such quiet and such a seemingly frozen moment was that day… but it was only because, as I recognize now, my senses, my body, and my mind had shut down – ancient and unconscious modes of protection, providing a temporary escape until a more appropriate moment to process presents itself.
But this calm was inviting, and so I accepted. At 5:45am, I sat in one of the blue Adirondacks on the patio, curled my knees under my chin, and watched and listened as the world awoke. It wasn’t long before I had to make a lap for Scarlet to snuggle. Lucy walked the fence line, inspecting her property. We watched together as the first bird of the morning graced the sky. I actually thought it was a bat at first, and it freaked me out, but I’ve never seen a bat soar without flapping its wings, so I’m going to continue to believe it was a bird. Lucy concurs.
I ran inside for a minute to get my camera. Who knows when the next time I’ll be awake as the sun rises, and I felt it would be irresponsible as a budding photographer no ignore this moment. (At this point Scarlet ran in with me and tried to convince me it was time for post-breakfast nap.) My attempts are recognizably amateur at best, but it was fun to experiment with shutter speed and bracketing in my failed attempts to find the perfect exposure.
Perhaps my shutter was nature’s alarm; it wasn’t long before the chirping of birds replaced the silence along with the first barks of the morning. Somewhere, someone pulled out of their driveway, I’d like to believe going on a kolache run (which is where I’d like to be as well). The sprinklers next door kicked on. The roof of the house to the east was highlighted with the back-glow of a sun ready to start the day… another day of frying my grass and dashing my plans of doing anything outside after 10. It‘s interesting to think that in such an unforgiving climate as the one we find ourselves with no rain, unrelenting heat, and that (often) god forsaken sun, that I’m wearing a sweater as I write on the porch. How wonderful. J I do love my sweaters.
So as the rest of the world begins to consider joining my unusual state of early morning consciousness, I think I’ll make some coffee – I’m getting markedly better at it – and perhaps take the girls on a never before seen early morning walk before Scarlet dismembers another squeaky squirrel, leaving stuffing in her wake.
Good morning everyone, and happy 4th of July.
I’ll post my exciting pre-sun pictures in a bit, so if they arent’ up yet, check back later.
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