In bed before 10 last night, I rolled out onto my feet at 5AM, ahead of the sunrise today. Immediately walked out onto the balcony with my Rad Davis reverse rhodesian half full of GLP Caravan, into a perfect, cool, quiet morning, unobserved 25 feet above the not yet busy street, wearing pajama bottoms feeling the air caress my shirtless back, sipping coffee, standing and watching the night fade and the day unfold from layers of shadow.
After last week's exhausting heat, mornings like this seem miraculous, and for me, like a trip back in time to my farm country boyhood. I got out on my bike as soon as I could without feeling rushed, toting my little sketchbook and pencil tin, along with that pipe and a lighter, and headed out opposite of the direction I usually take at the beginning of these rides just lately. Half an hour later, at the base of the hill where my rear tire went flat a couple of weeks ago, I slowed down, wheeled around in a u-turn on the empty road, and coasted back to the junction where Flory Road meets Musser Road with a T intersection. This scene, a cascade of red painted barns along a gentle hillside, glimpsed across a cornfield, was what brought me back. Some mornings I'm grateful for my life. This is one of them.
farm along Flory Road from Musser Road, Mt Joy, PA