February 09, 2005

A Sunrise in Vermont

On Monday morning, I woke up much too early, and put on my work clothes, and brushed my teeth, and kissed Jen good-bye, and walked out of the dorm I'm almost accustomed to living in. Winter was still not in sight.

For a week, it's been above forty degrees; one day it possibly hit sixty. And it's rained, and daffodils are sprouting in my room, and I wear only one hat and two performance fleeces when I travel outside. But mostly, the sky has not been a headstrong blue. I guess that's what I look for now, the headstrong blue, the ice and cold, the way that the heat is never on high enough until it's too much.

Instead of the familiar sky, there were oranges and reds, and some pink and dark blue as well. There was the snow on the ground, and the trees on the horizon, and the beautiful sunrise on Potash Hill.

It takes me about twenty five minutes to commute to work when I stay with Jen, but it's a drive I enjoy far more than I lead Jen to believe. Down the hill from Marlboro, the place I once couldn't drive away from fast enough, along the trees and houses and maple trees of South Road, where Vermont country life bleeds as bright as the fall colors, and all the way to Brattleboro, nine miles east and a thousand feet lower, I watched the sun rise in that way pictures always promise. The way we hardly ever see. The way we miss, and long for, and wish would come again soon.

There was a sunrise similar, when I was in Arizona a year or two back. I came across a scenic overlook after driving for too long in the lessening dark, and stopped for an hour while the sun did its daily duty. All alone, a thousand miles from anything I knew and two thousand miles from where I was going and didn't want to be, and here was this sunrise over the Sonoran desert, with beauty and mystery and longing enclosed.

The drive from Brattleboro to Marlboro, I think I've mentioned before, is much like the drive across Oregon's coastal mountains. The trees, and passes, and winding roads, and small houses with rusted cars, and livestock, and the points at which you know you've almost arrived. When you come down that last hill and see Philomath, or that last hill and see West Brat.

The sky was gray and overcast this morning, and tomorrow will bring six to twelve inches of snow and ickyness and the return of winter. And the ground, which had almost cleared away, and the roads, which had almost been cleaned off, and these hands that we hold, which had almost warmed up, will be buried again in untimely recollections of how things are in Vermont's February.

It was nice, though, for a little while, to miss the headstrong blue, and see oranges and reds, and some pink and dark blue as well.

Posted by Sean at February 9, 2005 09:54 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jen at February 10, 2005 03:50 PM

Posted by: Sean at February 10, 2005 04:58 PM

Posted by: Spammer at February 11, 2005 02:23 AM