Early Riser

I wasn't expecting that. How quickly things change. The morning's rising sun was barely cresting white when my eyes cracked open, I rustled myself haughty up. There was no doubt in me what I wanted. The wood smell of the old cottage permeated deep in the bunk beds. Black metal bunks and old wood beds stacked one over the other lined the walls. Old linens, that had been washed time and time over were pulled loose over myself and the snoring silhouettes. My sleeping family members slept peacefully all around; their eyes shut with the affirmity of sleep. To my young self this was the denial of so many treasures, I knew without knowing.

Even before going to bed I knew to rouse myself awake, I had known what I wanted to do. I thought of my internal clock and waking simply manifested itself. It was an excited vigor that I held, I can remember fondly the ease of waking and desire to rise. That my tackle box and dog, a dachshund named Junior, were to come with me. I could already smell the cool Summer air, the tackle smell of the sets of shiny plastic and aluminum trinkets and steel hooks; hear the sound of the winding fishing line as I readied the rod. I creeped out of bed, and gathered my things and my dogs regarded me with the very same eagerness I poured out. Going to the door and sniffing through the cracks in the woodstained doors and looking back at me knowingly, as dogs tend to do.

I was allowed to let them run free, as I intended to do, or sometimes I'd just take Junior and leave Fiji inside, as she'd wander too far. In any case Junior was my most willing volunteer, a follower who took every interest in our morning rises. He watched my every move and anticipated my every action. As I guided him out he was right behind, a loyal companion; the cool morning air blew softly over us. Cool until the sungrazing began. The sunroom looked down some 20 yards away onto the expanse of treasures: a sea of gold. The early morning lakewater was like a sheet of fine glass hanging over the near horizon. The sun turned its face so scintillating until its shine was an even distribution, not discrete, but shared with the world; and yet, it was my pure and isolated peace. It burned the most glorious red-orange your eyes could see.

So much did I change that once, back then, things had been so easy and rising from sleep was no matter. As a young boy I'd rise even before the sun and run to tell my parents I was up, so that we could play and enjoy the day together. To my dismay they often slept in. So easily, waking measured against the regret of staying lying like the dead, over seeing the immortal sun spray wealth down upon me, a mere boy. Or more so, that the sun and I were kindred we, that from early days of childhood I rose dutiful before the songbirds and saw out from the red painted porch of the townhouse and looked up. And it looked back down at me.

Junior and I were striding long and I leaped down the 5 tall steps of the cottage stoop. He lagged behind, pausing on each step to gauge the height required for each elongated hop. I could never know then how every step to the dock might feel now. I didn't care. I had already won and the only thing that mattered wasn't if I could catch a fish, this day had already made it's high point in the sky so early. In midday, the sun would change to yellow. The wind would make the waves lap high which could often be heard while sitting in the cottage, serving as an invitation to get out to cool off in the Summer heat. In the morning it was cold, but there was no wind and so the sun gave warmth like heaven's kisses over all that exposed Earth. As my feet rattled out across the planks, reaching the end of the dock, me and Junior sat to make base camp while I popped open my tackle box and adjusted the rigging on my rod. The cold was a moment, but the sun was proud now over the landscape, which I could take in fully. On those clear days, you could see right across to the other side of the lake at the other cottages, we lived at the widest cut of the lake, so it was a pinching of trees on the edge of sight. And so, we stood and tried to catch fish. Sometimes I'd get a bite and he'd sprout up with interest, other times he'd just stand and wag his tail looking about and we'd talk. I'd talk, of course. But looking back at those private moments, I feel like he was really listening. While the sun was there smiling down on us, and the fish were also part of our private game.

How quickly things change, one day I'm racing against the sun's rise, the next I fight to roll out of bed as it hangs center over the ceiling of my dingy flat; the blinds held shut. The time of day I stood up with Junior, not long from when I now go to sleep. If he could see me now would he look at me the same in my wallowing? I wasn't expecting to be on one side of glory in these memories. I never thought I would be so failing, waning, in my ambitions. I looked ahead and saw victory over my lesser judgement. The way my young self engaged with the world and the sun was like a romantic looking up at the moon. In some small way, my young self felt that I could pluck the sun, a perfect flaming globe, down from its lofty heights. Maybe life is like fishing and it's time to just let that go and try to reel it in slow. Of everything, I wasn't expecting that.