I woke up very early this morning. I tried to look at the clock without moving and all I saw was a blur of numbers. After debating how curious I really was, I raised my head and squinted enough to see “4:12”.
I knew immediately that I was not going back to sleep. Sometimes you just know these things. But I continued to lie there so as not to disturb the rest of the house – particularly the dogs.
So I laid there and thought. And thought. And thought. I thought about what woke me up. I thought about my left shoulder which has been hurting me and I which I think is what woke me up. I thought about whether or not I should go to the doctor. I thought about how I really didn’t want to go to the doctor. I thought about how adulthood wasn’t really all it was cracked up to be. I thought on.
As I have done a lot lately as has been described in this blog, I thought about growing up in my hometown of Elizabethtown and I thought of stories I could and should write; about our house, the house next door that burned down leaving only a set of concrete steps, Dad grilling on Saturday nights and watching wrestling through the window, making ice cream, killing flies for recreation (life existed before Xbox); just things that are coming back to me that I haven’t thought of in a lifetime.
By 5:21 it seems light enough now to minimize the trama to the dogs so I got up (as quietly as I could so as not wake Connie) to start their morning routine. The light is in that early transition period between night and morning that has them both at a stalemate. I turn on the outside light but it has little effect.
First order of business is to fetch the paper. I do this more for the sake of jump starting the dogs plumbing than a desire to read all the news that’s fit to print in the Hendersonville Times-News. The driveway is about 100 yards long and walking slowly it gives them an opportunity that they usually take full advantage of. Much to my surprise, the paper was there. What time do those people go to work?
When I opened the door to the screened porch to let them in, we hit the first problem of the day. Toby and Tristan wait impatiently as if they were in the starting blocks for the 100 meters at the Olympics. When the door opens they race each other to the kitchen expecting some human to be there to feed them.
Tris miscalculated just how open the door was and ran his head into the corner edge. He didn’t make a sound and it didn’t even slow him down much but there is a mark on his head right between his eyes and it had to hurt. Note to self: modify how I open the door in the morning.
They’re fed. I make coffee and then make my way to the screened porch – the favorite room of our house. We have a one-seater cloth swing chair that I sit in and put my feet on a pillow placed on the railing for just that purpose.
I hear what I first thought was rain but it was just the sound of the trees releasing the rain they had collected overnight by stretching their leaves towards the oncoming sun.
The crows are loud that time of day. I think they’re crows. They sound like crows. My guess is they’re related to roosters as they seem intent on informing an already informed world of the upcoming day. There’s one little bat darting back and forth over the yard not wanting to go home. Finally, he relents.
I have the brilliant idea of trying to take a picture from my chair through the screen out onto the yard. Unfortunately, the flash goes off and I ended up with a picture of my feet on the rail.
As the light takes over, morning activities begin. The dogs, who initially stayed with me on the porch, have gotten bored and moved to the other end of the house to wait for Connie -- they’re next best chance for food. One of our neighbors appeared walking his two small white dogs as he does every morning without fail. This must be one of his good days; he’s not using his cane.
The light has once again defeated the darkness and the song birds take over. It’s 7 o’clock.
I think I’ll go to bed.
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