Rising Son

When I walked out of the basement, pushing my bike, the sensor light on the side of the house clicked on. It was still dark. Above me I could hear the sounds of bustle in the kitchen. The morning flurry had begun for my wife and son. Breakfast, preparation, finding lost items. For a moment, I paused. I felt the little pang of regret that I sometimes get when I realize that I have rarely, if ever, stood on the porch and watch my son go off to school. Dad is the one who is out the door first, testing the waters, sometimes metaphorically, sometimes literally when it's raining. I let that go and pushed on into the dawn.
As I made the big turn to head up the hill next to our house, east into a sunrise that was awesome by comparison to the past few months of dark and gray. This was a blaze of oranges and pinks, set of by a cool, deep blue that stretched to the other horizon. I suddenly found myself on the smug side of things, relishing the sky that was mine and mine alone. This was the prize for getting out of bed and riding into a new day. With each pedal stroke, the colors began to fade. I thought of George Harrison: "Sunrise doesn't last all morning," sang my favorite Beatle. The oranges were now pale yellows. The clouds that had seemed so vibrant had become merely tufts of white. The sun continued on its journey in a vain attempt to catch the moon which was just beginning to set in the west as I pulled up in front of my school.
Another day had begun.