smokingboot

I've written here before about my sleepwalking days as a young adolescent. The most notable was when Mum woke up to see me in her room staring out of the window. Cross and a bit freaked out, she asked me what I was doing.

'I will see the dawn,' was my reply apparently. Then I was woken by her telling me not to be ridiculous, to get back to bed and go to sleep.

This feeling about the dawn has always stayed with me. I must have seen many by now, though the only one I can bring to mind is the Stonehenge at Midsummer experience, and even that is not just about the sunrise.

I remember sunset and forget sunrise. It's a bad habit.

Yesterday, up at ridiculous o clock my decision was to stay and see. I flung open the upstairs window that faces straight east, and watched the dark lift to a light bank of blue while a wind blew up from the south. The best thing was that dispersal of birds that always happens just as morning announces itself. This time it was as thought the house was moving through a murmuration of starlings with a few added gulls all around, wings close enough for me to touch. That's never happened to me before, and it was an amazing experience to be in a flock of birds as they move. But the sun was a no-show.

This morning,having already been fed by R, our tomcat decided to bug me and as there was no shutting him up I decided to give him second breakfast. I passed that eastern window and there was the most incredible sunrise just beginning, the sun's corona peaking above the trees, clouds surrounding in indescribable colours and the sheer brilliance beyond any poet or artist to capture. Then I had to fight off the temptation I have had since a little girl, to look straight into the heart of the light. Basically I am a bit of an idiot. But that sunrise was worth waiting for.