Remembering

Once again, I find myself unable to sleep. Perhaps it has something to do with the atmosphere--the thick city heat pressing against the outer walls of the house, crowding against the air conditioning within. Probably it has more to do my internal atmosphere. At any rate, as I tried to persuade my mind to go to sleep earlier tonight, I pictured cherished visits to my grandparents' farm. I hoped this would prove a soothing influence on my brain. Instead, it awakened on an urge to write.

As a preteen in love with The Farm's cats, old buildings, dusty lane, and unmown stretches of grass, I discovered that each precious day seemed lots longer if I rose with (or before) the sun. At bed time, I'd trudge to the little camper under the tall, tremble-leafed tree, twist the flimsy handle that creaked like a screen door coil, and step through the camper doorway. I liked to sleep on the top bunk, tucked up under the roof with the curve of the contact papery ceiling against my back. The mattress smelled a bit of mildew and the outdoors whispered through the little window by my head. I'd close my eyes, telling myself to fall right asleep and wake up really early. Remarkably, this strategy worked.

One morning I managed to wake before anyone else. I meant to join Grandpa as he prepared a snack for the cats and dogs before choring, but the farmhouse kitchen and the living room beyond were dark and silent. I felt uneasy, missing the banter of the radio guys announcing the price of crops, missing the routine of Grandpa scraping margarine across white toast with a paring knife. It occurred to me, vaguely, that Grandpa must be sleeping later now. That he was, in fact, growing pretty old. I let myself back out into the slowly wakening world.

Crunching through the navy blue darkness, I followed the lane to the far edge of the farmstead--back where the silo towered into the sky and The Pit (the remains of a farrowing house burnt down years ago) burrowed its tragic foundation into the ground. The fields stretched away from the farmstead's green island, unfurling a vista I loved. A line of round hay bales rested near the field's edge, and I hoisted myself up on one. Sitting on the crackly hay, I watched the morning seep through the overturned bowl of the sky. A ring of pinkish color rimmed its edge, while the high basin above me harbored rich indigo blue. There was something at once magical and somber about this first, solitary watching of the morning come in--a sacred moment.