Aurora’s Promise

18 years ago yesterday I paused to paint aurora’s promise into memory at 5:57am as I stood in the kitchen at Susan’s mother’s Rock Harbor home. In place of homogenizing darkness, an assurance of clarity. Night yielding to day, black to vibrant, multicolored luminosity.

We were 3/4 of a year into an historic rehabilitation of Rosslyn that had begun to feel more and more like Zeno’s Paradox. Or a mirage. Would we ever reach our destination? Would we ever arrive at the oasis we’d been toiling toward nonstop since the previous summer? Would we ever manage to move into our new home?

It was a tough time. In fact, in the North Country, March is always a tough time. Ready for spring, but winter isn’t ready to release its grasp. Rosslyn too was resisting, each day a new discovery that delayed the timeline and expanded the scope of work. Susan and I were beginning to succumb to the strain.

But at 5:57am on March 12, 2007 she was asleep in bed and I was standing in the kitchen waiting for water to boil, teabag in hand, watching dawn’s pregame show through a large window overlooking Lake Champlain. This ephemeral spectacle bestowed upon me a sense of confidence and clarity. Why? Not certain. But it inexplicably soothed me, a mysterious analgesic, comforting, parrying angsty darkness with joy and colorful brilliance. We could do this. We *would* do this.

Aurora’s promise isn’t always prettied up in technicolor wrapping paper, but however she presents herself, morning mends my malaise more often than not.

I rise early. I do my best thinking early in the day. My wellspring of motivation and energy is most notably in the first few hours after I awaken. And, all things considered, morning just makes me optimistic. (Source: Morning Light, Front Hallway)

Aurora’s Promise

Bloom, embered rose
unfurling 
fuchsia into
violet and
indigo and
fiery streaks
casting spells up-
on tranquil lake,
illustrating
pre-dawn pastels,
no, not pastels,
oils untubed, smeared,
no, not oils nor 
watercolors.

Unimagine
artist’s palette;
unhear poet’s 
apt epithet. 
Neither daybreak’s
rosy-fingered
odyssey nor
near lone pine,
sky witnessing,
lake witnessing,
distant mountains
unslumbering
dawn’s assurance,
illustrates nor
illuminates
nor […]

Needless to say, this is a work in progress. Still coalescing. Or stuck. Hopefully the former.

I’ll instead sign off with this flashback.

Early birds enthralled with the daily matinal unshading embrace the mystery (and the wellspring of possibility that flows through it.) I know. I am one. A “morning lark” married to a “night owl”. Opposites attract. The dawning invigorates me, and the gloaming invigorates Susan.(Source: Dawning)

With time and perspective (and the peculiar sort of mental composting that fertilizes my creative process) I hope to revisit aurora’s promise with a more articulate and less abstruse take. Soon. Perhaps.