With Each Passing Morning

It’s now 5:30 a.m. It’s frigid here in northern California as readers in the region can attest.

Last night, roofs were frosted with glaze, plants were covered with tarps, the sky was a brilliant clear black, punctuated by an almost full dipper of stars. Seems to get colder in the winter every year.

Out the morning window is transient darkness, absorbing new light almost by the second. I’m busy waking up, drinking my coffee, getting a handle on what I have to do to make something remarkable happen in a life that is unremarkable.

Just the way I like it.

*

In a few hours a farmers market will bustle and hustle despite the chill, and two local musicians will play and sing. An affair of pop ups and vegetables, the market comes on like the morning, a promise of carnival, and we will be there on the asphalt, our equipment and instruments ready to rock and roll.

Just as quickly it will be gone.

*

It is going to be a day. I’m like a young kid with white hair and a cup of coffee. The possibilities are endless. It doesn’t take much to light my fire.

One morning a while back, someone snapped a photograph. A boy sat down on the ground to watch and listen to us. His mother called: We have to go. Come on, son. Come on.

A tiny ethnographer, he observed us steadfastly, taking in the scene, studying these adults under a pop up, creating a field record. We told her he would be fine. We would watch him. The guy selling fresh popped caramel corn said he would, too.

*

Out the window during the time I’ve spent writing this mini memoir (it’s 6:49 a.m.) which I would never feed to a bot to mangle, I see a transition light, not quite morning, not quite night. When I look up from this screen and this paragraph, the wheel has turned. Light has come for this rough draft.

This photo documented a remarkable moment in an unremarkable life. I return to it from time to time to refresh my memory. These mornings count for something. They do.