Morning Has Broken

It’s become a routine for me now, for the past year, to walk a mile every morning—before the sun comes up, when it’s just me and a few joggers.  When it’s so dark and so silent, I hear the footsteps of the jogger long before I see them.

Admittedly, it’s only … mostly safe.

Once I had to take a detour around a fox who was sitting in the middle of the sidewalk and not backing down.

Another morning, I turned off my flashlight so that the man screaming obscenities across the street wouldn’t be able to see where I was.

But this morning was the first morning that I actually turned around and went home because of some sketchy looking people.  One was a woman who was probably just speed walking, but she was coming up behind me very fast and when I ducked between two parked cars and crossed the parking lot to see if I could lose her, she ducked between the exact same cars and followed me.

It wasn’t until I stopped suddenly and turned around to face her that she veered off down a different path.

Another was a man, simply standing on the corner, probably waiting for a ride.  But after my encounter with the speed-walking woman, I wasn’t taking any chances.  I turned around and went home.

Which was a huge disappointment for me.

I have come to cherish these morning walks.  The darkness and the silence means there’s very little to distract to me.  I spend these moments with God.  I spend them with my own thoughts, trying to tackle the stuff that kept me up the night before and that I don’t want to linger through the day today.

Walking every morning is a reason for me to get up out of bed.

Well … that and chocolate.

I may not have been able to finish my predawn walk this morning, but that didn’t excuse me from not walking later.  Taking walks has never been about physical exercise for me.  It has always been about spiritual and emotional nourishment, which is why after the sun came up, I headed to the Wetlands—at times, my most favorite place in the world.

It was chilly this morning, but the sky was blue and the sun’s angle on the horizon just right to cast the world in a warm glow.  Frequently, I just drive around the Wetlands, though lately the snowbirds who have migrated down for the winter and appear in the large numbers right in the middle of the road to watch to the birds, have been bringing out episodes of road rage in me.

So it was better for everyone this morning that I walk instead.

I passed a busload of snowbirds oohing and ahhing over a Northern Harrier that was flashing its white-banded tail for them.  The Northern Harrier really is magnificent.  I suppressed the urge to tell the snowbirds that I had gotten much better pictures of the bird than they were getting, that I had seen more than its white-banded tail.  I had seen its owl-like face.  I had seen it feed.  I had seen it groom.  I had seen it scratch an itch and do all sorts of embarrassing things we all do, frankly, when we think no one is watching.

I stopped only a few times to take pictures, once of what I think is a Savannah Sparrow, but may be a White-throated Sparrow.  Just when I think I have bird identification down, I’m introduced to half a dozen sub-species that all look identical.

I stopped for a turtle.  I never stop for turtles, but he was just sitting there—as it turns out, with eyes closed, which is why he didn’t move when I snuck close for a picture.

I love watching reptiles bask in the sun.  The sun gives them life.  It feeds them.  Turtles get the same look on their face that my cat does when I reach down to pet him and he closes his eyes and lifts his chin in preparation.

It was a blissful time for me, too, at the Wetlands this morning.  Despite the snowbirds, it was quiet and still.  And though the snowbirds’ large numbers and cackling laughs and chattering may aggravate me, ultimately, I can’t fault anyone for wanting to be a part of God’s glorious creation.

Perhaps it’s time to give up the predawn walks.

Perhaps it’s time to head back to the Wetlands again.