June 8 Photo: Six O'Clock

I am not a morning person. I have never been a morning person. I doubt that I will ever be a morning person. But I am the mother of small children, which means that I am up in the early morning a lot more often than I would like to be. And most of the time, it’s all I can do to drag myself out of bed, pry my eyelids open, and do whatever needs doing. But every once in a while, there’s some kind of reward for being awake at six o’clock in the morning.

Sometimes that reward comes in the form of a beautiful sunrise. Sometimes it’s especially beautiful birdsong, or a glimpse of a bright goldfinch or a scarlet cardinal having his breakfast at my birdfeeder. Once or twice it's even been a wild turkey in my driveway. And sometimes, it’s just the muffled quiet of early morning fog covering the world with a blanket of calm.

Sadly, this photo can’t do it justice, but the view out of my back window at six o’clock this morning was a masterpiece of color and depth. The bright green of my hedge faded into a more muted green of the trees behind, and then an even more muted green and grey of the houses and trees further in the distance, until all the color dissolved into the pure grey of the foggy sky. It made me wish I were a painter, able to capture every subtle gradation of color.

I don’t enjoy being awake at six o’clock in the morning, but if I have to be, at least I have moments like this to make it worthwhile.