Early

Though I would never call myself a morning person, per se, early morning is actually one of my favorite times of the day. Being a third shifter, I get to experience it more than I would if I worked normal daytime or evening hours, I'm sure! I love seeing a beautiful sunrise, and have noticed over the last couple of years that the various seasons can each yield their own kind of beautiful dawns! Whether it is a crisp, golden yellow, or a deep burnt orange or red...or even the transitioning of the blue before the sun adds color to the sky...whenever I look at the sky as it lightens I can't help but take pictures. I think it's fitting, too, that when I saw the ocean for the first time last May, I arrived on the beach just before dawn and got to see the sunrise. It was the stuff paintings are made of!

One of my favorite hours is the one just before the sun rises. I love the stillness, the coolness, the quiet. So many are still sleeping, but yet there is a twinge of hope in the atmosphere that in just a little while, movement and noise and life will invade the stillness and bring another day and all the opportunities it affords. I always find concentration easy during this hour. It brings me joy, whether I attempt to do something physical, or read, or enjoy a coffee, or just lie in bed and savor the last vestiges of the night's close darkness. These are moments of calm and peace.

I spent a few years commuting an hour each way to school two or three times a week. Some of my class began early in the morning, so I would watch the sunrise as I drove East, and many mornings the fields along the highway would cradle fog in their crevices, or frost on their surfaces. And then there were the first "warmer" days near the end of Spring, when even at that hour, I could enjoy rolling the windows down and breathing the envigorating morning air.

No, I have not often made it a point to arise early in order to enjoy my favorite part of the day. But it is one of the best things about being an extreme night owl!!

Allow me to share a few of my early morning moments with you:

Took a walk in the new snow after I got home from work one morning.

Leaving a work-site in the country one morning I saw this fog-covered pond.

South Padre Island sunrise, May 25, 2013.

Walking to my car when I got out of work one morning a few months ago.

Another angle in the sky the same morning as the picture above (it had just finished raining).

Driving home from work one day; I love how the sun just touches the topmost leaves of this very tall tree.

Frost on the trail of an early morning walk this past Fall.

An icy design on my windshield, you guessed it, when I got off work one morning a couple of months ago.
 

Have a beautiful weekend, everyone!