Anything is possible

These hours are all mine, this time just before the first blush of dawn and when the sun rises high enough in the sky to be ignored. This is when the breeze is cool on sleep fevered skin and body and mind are waking and preparing for the day ahead. The occasional rushing swish of tires on the pavement on Colorado Avenue are a soft counterpoint to the chirping birds and the tick of the keyboard as I compose my thoughts for the day, answer emails and navigate the mine fields of various news services in search for connection with the outside world.

After Dad died two years ago and I made a vow to write more, this was the time I was most creative and productive. I produced stories for six anthologies last year in these brightening hours when the gem bright lights seen through the seasonal changes of trees screening and outlining the horizons dimmed as cotton candy clouds flamed and faded to white while the sun rose in a molten pool of bronze and was born anew. These were the hours of profound silence before the rest of the world stirred, the soft strains of the city tuning up for another symphony of the streets.

The city comes to me in drifts of sound, but the view is very different here. Where once I looked out past the rooftops of the neighborhood to an unbroken view of the mountains, now I see the backs and sides of buildings and the dilapidated, weathered fence of a neighbor's yard out my bedroom window. I cannot see the mountains unless I go outside where hoary-headed Pikes Peak majestically rises above the shoulders of the surrounding mountain range. I miss seeing the mountains from the windows of my glass-walled aerie, but I enjoy the silence and peace of my ground level perch.

As the sun rises and warms the gathered dew, lilac drifts through the open windows. Its sweet scent fills my head and my lungs and pushes away the last of the morning congestion. It's difficult getting up for anything during these few hours of peace before I must heed the call to duty and responsibility and chores, so I enjoy each second, the afterglow of the night's dream lovers and travels, making ready for the day.

Most of my life, I've been a night owl, and can still be at times, seeing dawn from the backside instead of head on. I enjoy the solitude of night when the rest of the world settles in for the night, but I have become a devotee of approaching dawn seen through fresh eyes not wearied and weighted by a full day's work and worries. This is bliss and the promise of a new day where anything is possible.