But Soon

We've been getting up at 4:30am all week, because my wife is in the midst of a big project and she needs the extra hours. As I write -- it's 5:30 now and I just poured a second cup of coffee -- it's still dark. The first birds are singing. It's a time of day I've actually loved for a long time.

The summer of 1993, I worked at a small bakery in a small town in Southern California. I'd set my alarm for 4:00am, throw on clothes and splash cold water on my face, then walk a mile or so down a wide tree-lined street to the little village accompanied only by remnants of dreams and birds greeting the dawn.

By the time I reached the back entrance, the first light would be coming up and metal would be blasting from inside where the baker would already be pulling the first trays of bear claws, apricot and raspberry pinwheels, and croissants from the ovens.

I remember the particular stickiness of the icing we'd pour over the pastries before transferring them to the glass case out front, the bustle of getting everything ready for the first morning rush, the blast of cold when you opened the door to the walk-in freezer, the smooth turn of the lock to open the front door at 6:30am on the dot, and the familiar faces of the folks who started their day, every day, with a cup of Some Crust coffee.

This was all before Starbucks had infiltrated every city block in America. It's where I learned the art of steaming milk, though I never did get fancy with the latte art baristas do these days. (I sound old. I am old!)

So this morning, I took Chalupa out to pee in the scraggly patch of grass by our side porch, a pot of coffee waiting in the kitchen. And I stood there for a moment in the dark, the air cool against my bare arms and on my face. I looked at the sky and saw the same stars that would have greeted me nearly 30 years ago on those early-morning walks to work, and the same stars that greeting me in Vermont when I would head out with an infant in a front pack -- my son turns 15 tomorrow and was an early bird -- for walks around the neighborhood, lilac and forsythia scenting the early spring air.

Marking time is a strange and fluid thing. A crow pierces the dark silence, first with a single caw then several in a row, and I look up to see if there is a hint of light outside yet. No, but soon. Someday, I will look back on this, too, my 47-year old self at this wooden table in this second-floor kitchen, a kitchen that will no longer be part of our lives.

I will know in my bones what it was like to have both of my kids sleeping in their beds under my roof, as toddlers, as teens. We are all ever-changing. For as long as we are here in these bodies, we can bear witness to the first light -- that milky blue -- and the memories it holds.

I will need a rest at some point today, this I can tell you. But in this moment -- it's 5:55 now -- I can tell you that it will have been worth it to get to dip into the quiet before the bustle, the between space where night and day pass each other in a pause so brief if you blink you could miss it.

Breathe into that moment, I remind myself, and carry it with you in the waking hours to come. There is no way to know who will walk through the door, but at least you will be ready to say hello.