Light and Dark of our Times

In this very moment, I am inside of the Blue Hour. A quarter after seven in the morning. The twenty-fourth day of November. A Tuesday.

I turned off the stove light after pouring my second cup of coffee. And now, here I am with that cup and my dog, watching the world transition from night to day. Sage and I are witnessing the transformation from dark to light. There is no stopping it.

The light reveals a slight fog I had not known was there. A grey sky. The light also conceals some things I had been able to see previously. Distant headlights moving down the horizon. I suppose there is clarity in dark just as much as there is clarity in light.

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The last eight months have been tough. I have struggled. I have watched everyone I know and love struggle. Every single one of us is being touched by the same thing. If that doesn't make me feel connected to humanity, what does?

Lately I feel it is a perpetual midnight of a long, cold winter. But I am only certain that these times will turn. The dawn will break. There is no stopping it.

That dawn that will surely come, though I know not when, will reveal something like a warm spring morning with birds and bees and buds. Soft sunlight will illuminate all that had been quietly waiting in the shadows, including me. And I will see differently in the new light. I will be one of those that was able to bear witness to it all. One of those who watched the world move from a period of darkness back into one of light. And so will you.

Right now, though, right now, I am where I am. You are where you are. The world is where it is. It is easy to be caught in a sense of waiting. A limbo. Waiting for things to turn. Awaiting the transition. Awaiting some event that will make life a little easier, a little more convenient, a little more full. But this is essentially waiting for something other than what is. It is a resistance to what is. And what is is really all we have right now, or ever.

So in this dark hour, what are my headlights on the horizon? What are my stars? What can I see now that I wasn't able to see before this pandemic, and that I will no longer be able to see with the eventual dawn?

There is something here for us.

Middle of June. Middle of the Week.

I knew my son was a morning person when he was in my belly. They say unborn babies are most active at night, usually when you stop for sleep, but I always felt the kicks and wiggles in the morning. I think it's a morning person, I'd say, still wondering if it was a boy or a girl.

That baby is almost six months old now, and the sensations of pregnancy have faded in my memory. How can something that was so intense and enduring be hard to remember?

My little boy rose just after five o'clock this morning. His dad changed him before passing his small body over to me. He wrapped his arms around my shoulders. He hugs now, and he hugs with his whole body.

After his morning milk, we sat together on the couch in the blue hour, just me and my little son. In silence, we watched the wind pummel the trees outside the large windows of our living room. Before long, he had nodded off to sleep under the crook of my arm. I carried him to our room, wrapped him up in muslin and placed my sleeping boy down in his crib.

I want to say so much more, but I hear him now on the monitor. His familiar screechy voice cracks the silence of this room. It's just about seven on a Wednesday.

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It's later, but still not quite eight. The whole house is awake now. It smells of eggs and coffee. The wind still blows and now there is rain too. I have retreated to the office where I can prepare for my day. There is much work to be done.

Kevan has been home with Grady for the last month and a half while I have been working on the preparation of our next build. I've also been transitioning out of my job at Seventy1 Environmental. I have worked long and hard these last seven weeks, and I am tired.

Insurance audits and taxes and accounting. Loan documents and lien waivers and budgets. Plus a hundred other things it seems. And mainly, construction plans. I designed the spec house we are about to build, something I have never done before, and it was quite the process. We are now awaiting one final signature on our building permit application, which we will hopefully submit today. Yesterday we sent off a bunch of bid requests to subcontractors, and all of that is now off my plate. Slowly it feels like there is a light at the end of the tunnel for me. What that light looks like is less tasks and more time. I am a bit overwhelmed right now.

But soon, most of this prep work will be done and I will pass the torch over to Kevan who will then carry most of the workload for our family. He will begin construction and once again our days will look different. Instead of all of us at home each day, he will leave in the mornings, and Grady and I will be alone with each other once more. I am very much looking forward to being a full time mommy again.

I am excited to return to our daily walks at the lake, something we haven't done since April. I will still have work to do, but my tasks shouldn't be stacked on top of each other in the way they have been these last weeks. My main priority will be our son and the household management. For now, I must finish out the remaining to-do's, but I am so close to the finish line.

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We are still isolating and social distancing, though we had our first gathering this past weekend at the park. It was so nice to be with family and share our son with company for the first time in months. Half of his life has been in quarantine. I still don't feel comfortable handing him over to be held by others quite yet. I am waiting for a knowing that the time is right, and I feel it coming, though it isn't quite here yet.

This weekend we will head north towards the Sawtooths and try a night of camping with Grady in a place other than our backyard. We will be with family under the trees and mountains and stars, and I couldn't be more excited.

For now, I shall open up my work day and make the most of this Wednesday.

A Fine Spring Morning at Home

Spring came quietly into my life. Usually I am aware of the first day of any season, but I learned it was Spring by a message from my sister.

Snow still cushions the tops of the south hills against this morning's sky of blanched blue. I open our front door to watch the the east filling up with orange light over the fields. Sage and I watch the silhouettes of the neighbors' dogs Bella and Porkchop chasing each other in the wet grass.

I close the front door and walk to the back door, sliding it open to let Sage out. In my bathrobe, I step outside. The cold smooth concrete is pleasant against my naked feet. A rooster calls out and almost immediately a cow does too, as though they are saying good morning to each other. The birds are all singing their songs they sing, and the horses stand still and steady in the rising sun.

It is a fine morning. The air reminds me of waking up in my sleeping bag. Drawing the zipper open and pulling on layers. Collecting twigs and starting fire with sleepy eyes and waking hands.

I think I shall go out to make a fire now.

Good morning.