I awakened long before the alarm rang and slipped from the house as noiselessly as possible.  The neighbor’s dogs did not raise a ruckus.  I started my car and coasted around the quarter-mile road until the uphill climb required acceleration but even then, I bade my car assume the quietest possible stance.

Taking the road to the left, I rounded the curve in time to spy a ripple of crimson on the far horizon.  Leaning on the car window, I strained to frame the dock, the boat, the weeds on the roadside.  A swarm of gnats protested my intrusion but I persisted.  Then I drove another mile, until the river flanked me on the right and I could see a growing shimmer on the water.

When the sun had risen, bold, dependable, radiant, I got myself back into the car and continued on my way, into town.  I had a solid breakfast and lingered over coffee.  Whatever troubles plagued me lay forgotten, on the porch, outside my house, abandoned in the dazzle of the autumn daylight.

It’s the twentieth day of the seventieth month of My Year Without Complaining.  Life continues.

“I’ll Tell You How The Sun Rose”

I’ll tell you how the sun rose, –
A ribbon at a time.
The steeples swam in amethyst,
The news like squirrels ran.

The hills untied their bonnets,
The bobolinks begun.
Then I said softly to myself,
“That must have been the sun!”

But how he set, I know not.
There seemed a purple stile.
Which little yellow boys and girls
Were climbing all the while

Till when they reached the other side,
A dominie in gray
Put gently up the evening bars,
And led the flock away.

Emily Dickinson (1830 – 1886)