Saturday, February 21, 2015

Waiting for the Sun

It occurs to me this morning that I have spent a great many nights sitting awake with my heart pounding, waiting for some sign that the sky is lightening, that dawn is coming.  Which is strange, because I'm not afraid of the night.  I find it quite lovely and peaceful.  The vast spread of glittering constellations,  the ghostly arc of the moon.  The call of whippoorwills and the great horned owl that lives in my yard, the wild shrieking of a passing coyote pack.  These are the things I love about the nocturnal hours.

Things I don't love:

Bears.  Last summer I was alone at my family's mountain cabin, getting ready to take the dogs for their 10pm walk, when a snuffling sound outside alerted me to the presence of two half-grown black bears in the yard, scarfing down seeds I'd stupidly left out for the chipmunks.  I scared them as badly as they scared me, and they bolted.  Probably to sleep somewhere nice and cozy.  I however, stayed awake all night, jumping at every noise and shining flashlights out into the woods, positive they were going to send their mama bear to get me.  (They did not.)

Door-to-door salesmen.  You hear all kinds of horror stories about criminals pretending to be salesmen in order to gain access to your house.  So when I encounter one who's a bit too chatty - oh, do you live alone here, ma'am? - I immediately assume they are canvasing the neighborhood and will return under cover of darkness with crowbars, locksmith kits, and bad intentions.  Which means... I stay up all night, all week, with lights blazing and special booby traps set up in front of the front door to alert me in case I actually do fall asleep.

Also, freezing weather.  I never feared this until this winter.  But then, for the last seven years I've lived in a Manhattan apartment building where the big winter problem was that they cranked the heat up to eighty.  Here in the country?  Pipes freeze.  Even, apparently, if you leave the hot and cold water dripping overnight.  Hence you wake up at three in the morning to use the bathroom and discover that your upstairs cold water pipe has frozen.  Hence you spend the next several hours wide awake, terrified your pipe (which is buried somewhere in the wall) is going to burst, your landlord is going to make your pay for it, and oh, yeah, he's going to kick you out while you're supposed to be watching the place for your mother who's spending six months in rehab after having part of her leg amputated.

Hence I am awake this morning, exhausted, and still trying to warm my house up enough to thaw this goddamned pipe.  Did I mention the electric heat chose last night to stop working?  And we are expecting a fresh snowstorm to commence in three... two... one...

And, hence, I was awake once again to watch as the night lightened to gray, and color crept slowly back into the world.  Dawn is, possibly, the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

If it's common knowledge that that darkest hour comes right before the dawn... I will be here.  Waiting up for it.



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