another day in paradise

I got up earlier than usual this morning. I recently borrowed my daughter’s cold, and it’s one of those colds where you dread going to bed at night because you know how bad waking up is going to feel. And when you wake up you get out of bed as quickly as possible to get it over with. So I got up earlier than usual this morning.

It was just past dawn—the sun hadn’t yet appeared through the trees, and the woods were enveloped in a mist that looked like a dream or a movie. I got my coffee and sat on the back steps. I used to sit outside almost every morning. The world makes more sense at dawn. It’s good for the soul to be outside at dawn.

Besides, we live in paradise, and it seems like a sin of omission to not go outside and listen to the sun rise when you live in paradise. I used to listen to the sun rise almost every day. Then, six years, one month and 4 days ago I gave birth to a different manifestation of paradise.

At first, when she was tiny, I took my little manifestation outside with me to talk with God and listen to the sun rise. When she got a little older but not yet talking, we sat on the front steps and I taught her hand signs for flower and butterfly and paradise met paradise.

And then paradise became a lot noisier. My daughter’s speech began in the normal fashion, but at a somewhat accelerated rate. I think it was her 1 year check-up when she looked at the pediatrician’s clipboard and said, “book!” The doctor’s jaw dropped open and hung there a few seconds before she began shooting questions at me. The baby books said a child of 24 months should have mastered at least 50 words. At 20 months I decided to count her (correctly used) words. I stopped counting somewhere past 130, because she was learning them more quickly than I could count them.

Anyway, life became a lot noisier, and that marked the end to my mornings outside. Paradise now clashed with paradise; I could no longer hear the sun rise. My beautiful chatterer never stopped chattering. It was a new manifestation of beauty and one I gladly accepted with great joy.

Today, thanks to a nasty head cold, I heard the sun rise again. I listened as the birds awoke and began greeting the day. I heard the deer moving in the trees just out of sight. I was reunited with my old paradise, and I gave thanks.