Dawn today over Prouts Neck, from Ocean Park, Maine
It’s a simple routine here at Ocean Park in August. I go to bed at a decent hour. The sun wakes me up with soft colors arriving through the window next to the bed. I fetch the Nikon on my way out to the beach and take photos in my bare feet. I make a pot of French Roast. As the bedroom in the cottage glows with golden light, Darlene reads her Kindle, the Yorkie Claire licks her paws, and I pick an image I like, crop it, and Twitpic it to Twitter. All three of us are on the bed now, listening to my favorite Pandora mix, based on “The Girl from Ipanema.”
Eventually–in a matter of minutes, actually–the coffee cools, the light gets too bright, and I can’t figure out how to copy and paste a link to my Pandora station on the iPad. At 6:54 a.m., the first unsolved problem of the day. There turns out to be a workaround, using the laptop, but that won’t help if I travel this fall with only the iPad. Ah well.
I’ve spent just shy of 60 years looking for adventure, trying to be important. If you’d told me when I was 18, or 35, or even 50 that there’d come a time when the best things in my life would be boring, I’d have puked. But that time has come, my friends. I’m plenty engaged with fun stuff, but what I prize the most these days is pretty tame by my previous standards. Or, as the song says, “My world was dull each minute until I found you in it.” Without getting all theological, I’d capitalize that You as I move into this day with ordinary gratitude and a fresh cup of coffee.
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