sunrise: 7:12
I think I might get used to paying the price of admission for this daily reality show. Here's today's dawn in pictures:
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Best show in town
sunrise: 7:12
I think I might get used to paying the price of admission for this daily reality show. Here's today's dawn in pictures:
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Here Comes the Sun
sunrise: 7:12 am
Okay - maybe Jan. 6th is a little early for a paean to the sun, but I've just seen it for the first time this year. It deserves a little celebration. Besides, it's a great song to start any day.
It is no wonder that human beings worship the sun. We have absolute dependence upon it. Even in its temporary absence behind cloud cover, our emotional and physical well-being flag. Just because we've discovered the physics of orbital rotations and gravity in our solar system, doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to celebrate the sun. It's good for us to feel the kind of humility we ought to feel in our dependence on our solar center.
Besides the smile returning to our faces, there is another reason for my recalling "Here Comes the Sun" today. Our home has been infused with the Beatles for weeks, thanks to my high school daughter, T. who has caught the Beatles bug in a big way. She plays their music on her ipod and on the piano, researches them online, she's reading the Beatle's Anthology, and planning a feature film about the boys for some time in her future in film production. Seeing her enthusiasm for the Beatles is kind of incredible, seeing as how they broke up before her parents were teenagers. My conclusion is that they made more than history; they made extraordinary music. That just doesn't ever go away.
Two things to feel thankful for today. Music and sunshine.
Okay - maybe Jan. 6th is a little early for a paean to the sun, but I've just seen it for the first time this year. It deserves a little celebration. Besides, it's a great song to start any day.
It is no wonder that human beings worship the sun. We have absolute dependence upon it. Even in its temporary absence behind cloud cover, our emotional and physical well-being flag. Just because we've discovered the physics of orbital rotations and gravity in our solar system, doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to celebrate the sun. It's good for us to feel the kind of humility we ought to feel in our dependence on our solar center.
Besides the smile returning to our faces, there is another reason for my recalling "Here Comes the Sun" today. Our home has been infused with the Beatles for weeks, thanks to my high school daughter, T. who has caught the Beatles bug in a big way. She plays their music on her ipod and on the piano, researches them online, she's reading the Beatle's Anthology, and planning a feature film about the boys for some time in her future in film production. Seeing her enthusiasm for the Beatles is kind of incredible, seeing as how they broke up before her parents were teenagers. My conclusion is that they made more than history; they made extraordinary music. That just doesn't ever go away.
Two things to feel thankful for today. Music and sunshine.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
humility
sunrise: 7:13
a hopeful sign this morning. For the first day there was the faintest break in cloud cover on the furthest eastern horizon. I still haven't seen the sun in 2010, but it was an improvement.
Yesterday's load of wet snow crusted over with ice made for challenging skiing. Fortunately I left my camera behind today. It might have taken a hit one of the times that I collapsed in ungraceful and weirdly angular positions. Getting back to my feet felt a bit like the first, futile attempt of a newborn colt to stand. If you ever feel your ego is getting overlarge, just go out for a trek on cross-country skis on deep, ice-crusted snow. Sure fire cure.
a hopeful sign this morning. For the first day there was the faintest break in cloud cover on the furthest eastern horizon. I still haven't seen the sun in 2010, but it was an improvement.
Yesterday's load of wet snow crusted over with ice made for challenging skiing. Fortunately I left my camera behind today. It might have taken a hit one of the times that I collapsed in ungraceful and weirdly angular positions. Getting back to my feet felt a bit like the first, futile attempt of a newborn colt to stand. If you ever feel your ego is getting overlarge, just go out for a trek on cross-country skis on deep, ice-crusted snow. Sure fire cure.
Monday, January 4, 2010
transitions
sunrise: 7:13, back home again
Still catching my breath after breaking trail for half an hour in 15 inches of wet snow. The up side is that the dogs are worn out too, and quiet.
My last resident teenager was back to school this morning, pleasantly surprised to have human company before her departure. She occasionally happens to overlap with Dad on the way to work, but for some time I have opted out of the early morning routine. I figure she has to learn to get herself going pretty soon, she might as well start young while she has some backup.
I do commit to staying up late with my daughter (almost always), so she doesn't have to face the homework grind in a solitary midnight gloom . Even though there are moments when I think longingly of sleep, I feel fortunate that my company is welcome. After all the trepidation I felt about the dreaded "teen years," I found living with adolescents incredibly dynamic and exciting, and I'm truly going to miss it. There is a passion for life, exhilaration of discovery, intensity of grief that pervades the teen years. It is enormously invigorating to live with constant reminders of how dramatic and powerful it is, this experience called life.
It is especially poignant to me during this last round. As my youngest makes the transition into those lively years of hormonal ebb and flow, I am making my transition out of it. There is something peaceful about leaving it behind. It is nice not to feel quite so UNDONE by everything. But there is also a wistful sense of nostalgia for those depths of feeling. I can still find them, but it takes more of a conscious effort.
Also, I could do without that feeling that I'm being inexplicably microwaved several times a day.
Still catching my breath after breaking trail for half an hour in 15 inches of wet snow. The up side is that the dogs are worn out too, and quiet.
My last resident teenager was back to school this morning, pleasantly surprised to have human company before her departure. She occasionally happens to overlap with Dad on the way to work, but for some time I have opted out of the early morning routine. I figure she has to learn to get herself going pretty soon, she might as well start young while she has some backup.
I do commit to staying up late with my daughter (almost always), so she doesn't have to face the homework grind in a solitary midnight gloom . Even though there are moments when I think longingly of sleep, I feel fortunate that my company is welcome. After all the trepidation I felt about the dreaded "teen years," I found living with adolescents incredibly dynamic and exciting, and I'm truly going to miss it. There is a passion for life, exhilaration of discovery, intensity of grief that pervades the teen years. It is enormously invigorating to live with constant reminders of how dramatic and powerful it is, this experience called life.
It is especially poignant to me during this last round. As my youngest makes the transition into those lively years of hormonal ebb and flow, I am making my transition out of it. There is something peaceful about leaving it behind. It is nice not to feel quite so UNDONE by everything. But there is also a wistful sense of nostalgia for those depths of feeling. I can still find them, but it takes more of a conscious effort.
Also, I could do without that feeling that I'm being inexplicably microwaved several times a day.
Sunday, January 3, 2010
tricks of time
Sunrise 7:23 am
My first sunrise outing away from home, which illustrated my ignorance of time patterns. I am a few hours west of my home town this morning, but I had no idea that the sunrise would be a full 10 minutes later after so short a distance. Damn. I could have slept an extra 10 minutes.
The Christmas vacation officially ends tomorrow morning. It has been a thought-provoking period for our household, as my husband and I discussed in the car on our way to visit his family and pick up our daughter. When all four kids were home over Christmas we were in a lovely yet occasionally unsettling state of togetherness. We all love each other, and love the idea of our family, both nuclear and extended. But each time that we return together, there is a reorganization of selves and relationships. No one is static in their lives away, or their lives at home, and we all reacquaint with each other's new selves each time we gather. At the same time, we are forever bound to earlier versions of our own and each other's selves. It is a delicate dance. Without sensitivity to, and respect for all of the complexities of growth and change, history, individual trials and explorations, and the intricacies of love and relationship, families can (and surely DO) malfunction. Family is, nonetheless, an institution worthy of the effort it requires.
A lovely and seemingly effortless groaning board of hearty soup, brown rice salad, fresh bread and holiday goodies was laid out at my in-laws last night. Cousins all around, three generations together. There it was again - that sense of timelessness juxtaposed with a sense of time sweeping away in a blink. Same group, same food, but how did that tumbling pack of two-footers turn into these towering, sentient beings around a poker table? And how did those young parents get so...middle-aged (especially that one in the mirror)?
My first sunrise outing away from home, which illustrated my ignorance of time patterns. I am a few hours west of my home town this morning, but I had no idea that the sunrise would be a full 10 minutes later after so short a distance. Damn. I could have slept an extra 10 minutes.
The Christmas vacation officially ends tomorrow morning. It has been a thought-provoking period for our household, as my husband and I discussed in the car on our way to visit his family and pick up our daughter. When all four kids were home over Christmas we were in a lovely yet occasionally unsettling state of togetherness. We all love each other, and love the idea of our family, both nuclear and extended. But each time that we return together, there is a reorganization of selves and relationships. No one is static in their lives away, or their lives at home, and we all reacquaint with each other's new selves each time we gather. At the same time, we are forever bound to earlier versions of our own and each other's selves. It is a delicate dance. Without sensitivity to, and respect for all of the complexities of growth and change, history, individual trials and explorations, and the intricacies of love and relationship, families can (and surely DO) malfunction. Family is, nonetheless, an institution worthy of the effort it requires.
A lovely and seemingly effortless groaning board of hearty soup, brown rice salad, fresh bread and holiday goodies was laid out at my in-laws last night. Cousins all around, three generations together. There it was again - that sense of timelessness juxtaposed with a sense of time sweeping away in a blink. Same group, same food, but how did that tumbling pack of two-footers turn into these towering, sentient beings around a poker table? And how did those young parents get so...middle-aged (especially that one in the mirror)?
Saturday, January 2, 2010
support staff
sunrise, 7:30am (I won't be fussy about seconds)
Already harder to get up today. The excitement of newness wears off pretty quickly, especially at 6:30 in the morning. One lovely part of my first two morning forays has been returning to breakfast, already prepared by my dear husband. He is not an early riser either, so I am particularly appreciative.
I am fully aware of the ridiculousness of this dawn rising challenge to untold thousands who get up every day at that hour either by choice, by their nature, or by requirement. We each have to find that something that pushes us to do and be a little more than we are, if we have fallen into a rut.
I'll introduce my cast of companions today. Kate, Clara, and Guster.
On the left is Guster, a pound hound. He barks to extremes, and may be banned from these early morning outings. But so far he's been okay. He's standing by the wreckage of an immense white pine that exploded into pieces last summer after a lightning strike.
Kate is a lab mix, always at the ready, stick at hand. She looks a little scary with those intense eyes, but she's just a little crazed with retrieval obsession disorder.
Clara is our newest addition (we seem to add dogs in proportion to the departure of children). Another lab mix, she likes to pounce on other dogs and people. It would be cute if she didn't weigh 80 pounds. We're working on that.
Dogs are one of God's greatest gifts to humankind. I'll go into that some more on another day. Suffice it to say that they contribute profoundly to my motivation to go outside. There's something about cavorting dogs that fills me with vicarious joy.
Friday, January 1, 2010
off and skiing
Sunrise, 7:13am. Day one successful.
No sun, beautiful snowy landscape nonetheless. The only sign of wildlife I observed was a small cluster of seagulls drifting by.
With thoughts about rising to see "the first light of day," I was thinking about darkness and light this morning. We know that sunlight is connected to health and happiness (ie: vitamin D, seasonal affective disorder, etc). But a world without darkness would be oppressive in its own way. I had a profound fear of the dark when I was younger. In my struggle to combat it, I have come to feel a deep appreciation for the serenity, comfort, and rest in darkness. Due to the snow cover, last night's darkness was an especially gentle one. Long before I got out of bed, visible light filled the outdoors.
It is interesting that in this season of short days and more hours of sunless night, snow provides light from the ground up. Phases of the moon, quantity of snow, cloud cover, landscape -- all contribute to nature's varying qualities of light. The changes are subtle, like the transition between pre- and post-sunrise during my backyard outing today. I had to really think about it to realize that the sun must have risen. My awareness was dependent on things like the clock, or my camera whose automatic flash suddenly stopped engaging.
There is a lot to be gained in exposing ourselves to all of the many levels of light, dimness, and darkness in nature. So much of our existence is bathed in artificial light. The lights are always on. It dulls our sensitivities. To turn parts of ourselves back on, we need to turn out the lights.
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