Artistry of the Sky

I’ve become a morning person.

It’s by default, because of my schedule, but a morning person non-the-less. If I slept until noon, I would still go to bed by 10pm.

Even in college, when the bars closed I was ready to go home. The concept of ‘after parties’ always killed me. Come on people, its 2 am. No good is going to come of this. Just go home and go to sleep. This earned me a lot of ridicule, and probably lost a few friends, but whatever. It was and they were things that I just didn’t need in my life.

Now, my alarm sounds daily at 5 am. Don’t get me wrong; unlike Matt who wakes earlier than that on a regular basis, I truly need my alarm clock to get up. I curse it every morning.

Once I finally gather the bits of my mind spread around the house, along with stuffing Gracie into clothes and her car seat, I’ve come to enjoy the mornings.

In fact, one of the favorite parts of my day is in the 45 minute voyage to work. I hit a certain bend in the road every morning around 6:33 am. (Yeah, I like schedules. What of it?) And for 30 seconds I get to enjoy what I consider to be one of the most beautiful, magical parts of nature.

The sunrise.

I turn the corner, and the sun is just barely over the horizon, peeking through the bare branches of trees. In this instant, there is no traffic. There are no houses. There are no power or telephone lines.

There is nothing in my line of sight but the glow of gold, pink, red, or orange, surrounded by the black of night. Cloudy days are the best. The color is even more vibrant. There is no haze of city light, airplanes and stars to compete with the color.

I sometimes catch myself holding my breath during the quarter mile that I am given this view.

Everyday I wish my cell phone had a camera on it so I could take a photo.

Everyday I wonder if anyone else is looking at the horizon or if it is all mine.

I tend to believe that it is all mine. For those precious seconds, I own the sunrise. Then, as I speed towards the split in the road and the horizon drops, I imagine that I am reluctantly giving it back so someone else and enjoy it.

My focus is returned to the road and its unpredictable drivers and I daydream of what the next sunrise will look like.