This morning I was woken at 6AM by this very chatty cockatoo. His occasional shrieks stirred me from my slumber and made me think about a time long gone when I would have been out there enjoying the morning with him. He and his mates hung around for an hour or so until it was light enough to get his photograph. As I dozed off and on I remembered, with great fondness, an old friend - 5AM.
I know how good that hour between 5am and 6am looks and feels. For many, many years I was addicted to 5am and couldn’t get through a day without having spent time with it. I loved the feeling of 5am on my bare arms and legs as I walked a 5 km track along the Canning River. I loved seeing the myriad birds, an occasional a fox and joggers and runners with ‘steam’ from their engines hissing from their mouths in the cool morning air. And there were ‘the usuals’ I’d see along the way. I amused myself no end imagining what they did by day. I’ll bet she’s a widow who’s moved to the city to be close to her kids. I’ll bet she’s a Nun. I’ll bet he is a single father up before the kids wake up. And the doozy – I'll bet he has a hydroponic drug lab! If you’ve never been up at 5am, take it from me, it can do strange things to your mind. Strange in good ways too. There's the excitement of watching lights coming on in distant houses, knowing who's up first. Then there's that big golden sun coming up over the Darling Scarp casting really long shadows across the backlit landscape. Shadows which contract before your eyes; running backwards until moments later when they find their length and settle. Sometimes,when it was cloudy, the shadows were replaced with gold or silver sunbeams, or maybe even a rainbow - your own private sky show. And you were there. Right there at the start of that day, and you feel privileged, very privileged, because 5am is not friends with everyone.
No comments:
Post a Comment