One of my favourite things to do is to steal a morning, steal a light that others sleep through, to see a part of the day that only those who dare to roll out of bed see. Getting up early is not a novel activity, but it is certainly one that produces miraculous fruit, in the soul, in the mind, in the body, stirring the spirit to wake. You feel like a robber of the night, stealing a time of silence and quiet where footsteps are loud and voices are hushed, where I feel like I have to creep, my footsteps soft and my voice whispered, like a robber of morning who doesn’t want to be caught and awaken the world to the treasure I’ve found for fear it will be taken and the secret with be turned to the known.
Silence.
There is a silence to the woods that you get in places like no other, where needles line the floor it softens the underfoot, silencing stops and cushioning any noise that might have been made to a whisper, like the noise of squeezing a cushion. So tall, weighty, grounding. The trees hovering over like angels of peace, casting prayers of protection over any animal, human, plant, that fares their fate under its branches. Peace. The rushing silence of wind in trees far off is a silence like no other. It’s like a noise that’s heard through a cup, cast down a piece of string and into another cup. It’s heard from far off, and to me this is silence.
Silence doesn’t mean noiseless, it means a far off quietness, a stilted noise that sounds like it’s from another realm. The voice of God is like this, speaking from a space where time does not exist, making its way to the space in which we exist, speaking words and singing songs, holy and full of love right into our ears. This is silence – the quiet peace of a voice so bold, so whole it surrounds creation, consuming it all. It’s in the silence where I am found.
There’s something so still about early mornings. When clag hangs on the pond, sticking to it like a child is sticking glitter and tissue paper on a page, but other things stuck too like dust and dirt and scrunched bits from yesterday’s lunch. The feathers look like unmelted snowflakes. It’s light but the sun is struggling to open here eyes, like George who I left laying in bed. “Are you coming?” I was met with silence.
Morning is my favourite. You don’t get smells like this at any other time of the day, only in morning.
The swans are bigger than their mother and father, and their down is now spattered and streaked with white, as if the painter actually picked up the wrong colour and tried to correct it with white, hit instead of it turning white they ended up a darker shade of beige. The more he brushed, the more they smudged into a carpet shade of beige. Coats take a while to come, I should know, I still feel like I’m waiting for mine.
The scum in the pond is the same all the way round, like a sheet collecting fluff from socks in a bed.
I leave the squirrels for today, I cannot see them without giving them food. I feel too cruel.
The coot sounds like an air horn running out of steam this morning. Maybe he had a sore throat.
I walk to quickly to avoid getting in step with strangers.
My walk alone feels like I am preparing for my day of solitude.
I think I like it when fog or mist hangs imagine a smell you don’t like to hang, it makes me feel wrapped somehow, like this world and this morning is mine and mine alone. My cocoon fogged duvet lulling me into a comfort I don’t always feel when out alone.