Sunshine companion

In the winter I wake when the sun rises, shining through the naked branches right through my bedroom and bathroom windows and into my eyes like a soft caress. If I burrow deeper into the covers, the winter sun comes and finds me, rooting me out of bed as effectively as a blaring alarm clock or a drill sergeant banging the metal rails of my bed. If I dropped the blinds and closed the slats I could sleep a little longer, but I'd rather watch the sun rise from its bloody overnight grave and flare to molten gold as it journeys up and overhead changing the quality of light and the colors of everything I see.

The mountains get the same treatment. They are a dark craggy mass against the night sky that flushes with returning blood as the sun crests the horizon, deep purple and then violet, shading lighter and lighter through blues and reds until the bare ocher face above the tree line and the pine needle green of the forests can clearly be seen. Even on misty gray days when the clouds hide the Colorado blue behind dirty, bunched cotton batting and the mountains are a shadow in the mist, I can still see the furry lines of the pine forests and the chiseled face of the mountain top. Each day is different but edged with the familiar, the sun my constant companion urging me up and out and into the daily stream without tentatively testing the water with a reluctant toe.

Today is another such day but the light cannot reach me through the leafy branches and so I wake later, sometimes sleeping peacefully until eight when the trees in their full green skirts can no longer shut out the sun's strong gaze. "I'm up. I'm up," I murmur as I move slowly about my morning rounds, joints popping and cracking until they find well oiled grooves and give up protesting. Sunlight glancing off the rain wet edges of the leaves sparkles and shimmers like joyful laughter. I'd rather be up and about and yet something inside me reminds me that sometimes its nice to lie in bed and enjoy the show in comfort, completely aware of the bright day chariot's passing touch instead of oblivious with my nose to the grindstone. "Some day. Some day," I say and jump into the stream.