Tag Archives: morning

Stars, Sunrise, Headlamp

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I rose early yesterday morning to run. This time of year it can be hard to do that. My wife had to leave by 7:00, which meant I had to get up, change quietly in the dark, stretch, run, and then be back in time to be in charge of the children before she split. Problem is, the sun doesn’t rise until about 7:30 these days.

It was, as you might guess, dark when I got up. I planned ahead, as I tend to do when I want to run early, by laying things out the night before. Changing and stretching and donning the reflector vest wasn’t too much of a chore. It was about 29 degrees outside, so I added gloves and a hat to my outfit.

It was dark but I had my headlamp. It is an LED headlamp and I have had it for a year or so. The thing is a winner. It is bright, easy to turn on and off with gloves and the batteries last forever. In fact, despite hundreds of hours of use, the batteries were the original ones. That, it turned out, was a mistake.

The stars were at their brightest. It was just before the sky got light but after many artificial lights had been turned off. Plus, the moon was down. So the stars stretched across the sky, the constellations chasing each other in their endless evening game. I was, although I have seen this many times, stunned. I do not see the night sky enough. Some people almost never see it. It makes me feel small in the scope of the universe, yet it also makes me feel a part of that universe. It isn’t a bad way to start the day.

As I ran in the dark, the sky gradually grew brighter. I ran without a light most of the time. In fact, what blinded me most to seeing my way was light. There are two street lamps on my route and both of them make it difficult to see, since they ruin my night vision and create a black hole on the far side of their glow. i wish they were not there. I can imagine why they were installed, as they are both next to barns. I don’t know why we need to burn electricity for them all night these days, however. It seems like that isn’t necessary. I sure wouldn’t want to be trying to get to sleep in one of the houses beneath them.

It was early enough that I actually passed no cars. That is rare. Typically I turn on my light so cars can see me better. I turned it on at a couple of key points to make sure that anyone out with an unleashed dog might see me, but not for cars. I also turned it on when I passed the street lamps. It did not, however, help me much.

The light produced by my headlamp was pretty much doodly squat. Twice I thought it was off and discovered it was on when I put my hand up to the bulb. The batteries, AAA, a year old and well-used, were at their end. That is pretty amazing if you ask me. Heck, even if you don’t ask me it is pretty amazing. Imagine if we switched our home light bulbs to LED bulbs. Forget those twisty fluorescent jobbers. LEDs would last even longer and use even less energy. One of these days they will be cheap enough.

As I got close to home the glow in the east was gathering. It was still dark but not as dark. The sunrise was not far off. I have not been running early lately. I finally am ready, physically, to get back to it. It isn’t easy. This is, after all, the darkest time of the year. But I will do it. If I want to run enough, I don’t have another time that will work.

Tomorrow I will go out early, but not as early as yesterday. I may just see the sunrise, and the early glow on the brown fields. On the other hand, I might just get rained on. Either way, I will get in some miles and feel good about it. And it will be a safer run now that I have a new set of batteries in my headlamp.

Mercury in the Morning

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I rose early this morning.  I had to get out of the house to meet a group of students.  We are taking a trip down to the Rutland area to visit some colleges.  I had to get up in the dark.  This morning, that worked out well.

For the next few days, Mercury rises on the eastern horizon just before sunrise.  At 6:30 I could see it glowing just above the pale horizon.  It was the only celestial body I could see, with the exception of one star, just above it.  By 6:45 the sky was too bright for me to see it.  It is a fleeting planet, like the god after which it is named.

I have not seen Mercury much in my life, although I have tried to see it many times.  Seeing Mercury is one of those things to pursue throughout a lifetime, so I know I will have many chances to see it again.  I have thought for a long time of investing in a telescope, one powerful enough to the see the moons of Saturn.  One of these days I will splurge on that.

Perhaps tomorrow I will rise early enough again to spy the other red planet.  If I am lucky the clouds will have drifted off.  If I do not see it again, I will have a few days left to do so, and I am sure I will see other small wonders in any case.  That is the deal with rising early–there is always something wonderful to see.

Perfect Morning

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It was a perfect morning.  Seriously.  I got up and out of the house to go on my first run in almost two months and I can’t imagine picking a finer day to do it.

I was out before the sun rose.  The sky was aglow with pre-dawn pink and blue.  It was cold enough that we had the hardest frost yet this fall, so everything was coated in a layer of white crystals.  The field is full of brown grass and no longer flowering flowers.  All of it was thickly covered in frost.  The fluffy milkweed seeds that had blown into the driveway sat still, glowing.  Every pebble was rimed.

With the tinted sky, white highlighting every surface, leaves still offering a display of orange and red and yellow, and the air windless, I was awestruck.  The cold air was clear and so was my head.  I ran into a perfectly picturesque world.

As I ran I saw the morning as a paradigm of the pastoral.  Hay bales sat scattered across the mowed fields.  Ravens perched in leafless trees, croaking out their series of four quick notes when I passed.  A harrier lifted from the pond hidden over the hill.  Corn stubble lined up in even rows on a distant hillside.  Maple leaves drifted down to the crumbling grave stones in the ancient cemetery.

This is why I live here.  This is why I run.  Not every morning is as beautiful as this one, but they all have beauty to offer.  I have run the same route many many times, but it has never looked like it did today.  In fact, I ran out and back, and on the way back, it looked different than on the way out.  Every moment the world is new.  Every moment we have the chance to find wonder.

Coffee and Tea

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I was once a fanatical coffee drinker.  I worked in a cafe in Portland, Oregon, and we were allowed whatever coffee drinks we wanted.  I was a barista, so this was in part to get me to practice making and to taste a variety of choices.  That I did.  I would walk down from Northeast Salmon Street a couple of blocks to the Cup and Saucer, hang my jacket, wash my hands, and make something funky.

Maybe I would make something like a double tall hazelnut orange skim latte.  Or a single cappuccino with a blast of almond syrup.  Sometimes I would just have an espresso shot but I preferred the foamed milk.  Perfecting that was my raison d’etre while I worked the coffee bar.  I would often allow myself multiple drinks during my eight-hour shift.

I would get out in the afternoon and would meet some of the friends with whom I lived.  We would walk across the street and sit down to talk and drink coffee.  I had to pay for this so I usually just drank the regular stuff.  It was good coffee.  We would debate or talk philosophy and listen to KMHD (“all jazz, all the time”) for a couple of hours, all the while sipping the bean.

By the time I got married I still drank coffee on occasion but had overcome my seven cups a day phase.  We drank tea.  We drank tea when we went backpacking.  We drank tea when we went for a long ski.  We drank tea after dinner.  We had a whole kitchen drawer devoted to tea–Earl Gray, Lemon Zinger, even Salada for guests who preferred the mainstream stuff.

At one point I bought a coffee maker, one of those cheap ones with the glass carafe on a burner.  I would make coffee once in a while for myself.  My wife found it nasty so I tried to clean it up right away and most of the time only drank it when she wasn’t around.  Things have changed.

When it came time to replace the glass carafe the second time I spent the big bucks and got a maker with an insulated carafe.  It makes far better coffee.  Somewhere along the way my spouse started drinking Starbucks frozen coffee drinks.  Those were the gateway drugs.  Now she comes downstairs before I do to make the coffee.   She does not find it to be nasty anymore.

Lately, however, I have turned to tea again.  It feels like revisiting a friend I haven’t spent time with in a while.  After the children are asleep and the house is finally quiet, I can sit and read or write or watch some weird film and sip tea.  With just a dash of cream and solid dose of honey, it offers the perfect evening companion.

i still drink coffee in the morning.  Tomorrow is Saturday and I look forward to taking the time to steam up some espresso and to foam some milk and to make something fancy right in my kitchen.  But it will be a chilly day tomorrow.  At some point in the afternoon I will probably brew up some tea.  It will warm me, and I will look out at the fading colors of fall and I will feel just about right.