......5:30 am

Yogis,

5:30am and I are tight. We have known each other for over 30 years now and have spent almost every Monday through Friday together. Through the years of mothering with my big pregnant belly, through raising three boys to be men and navigating corporate life. We continue to stay together even now into my crone years as I navigate this change of life. Now that is a bond not taken lightly!

For the first ten years it was running. Up and out the door by 5:30 come rain or shine, hot or cold. Then yoga entered the scene, first once a week and then twice with conscious breathing beginning as the clock marked the time. Always up, dressed and present for whatever happens at that time of the day. Even an annual running girls holiday gift exchange……..

It is always this week, however, that a tinge of sadness creeps in as I open the door to head out. Like clockwork I know that this will be my last week of running in light.  I can already see the signs. When I return from my vacation there will be a marked difference as 5:30 will once again be shrouded in darkness, although it will ease me in by continuing to offer some light for the run back. For a while at least. 

There exists only a two-month window each year where I leave and return with the early rays of sun on the horizon and the busyness of the birds as they prepare for their day.  Even then I may cross paths with only two or three people. It is a solitary time. For the remainder of the year the streetlights are on as I watch my feet hit the pavement.  The number of human encounters dropping even further. Days I see no one.

There is an innocence to the early morning. Each night as the lights go out and we sleep, it’s as if the slate is wiped clean. A calm spread like a densely woven cotton blanket. The plants still laden with water at 5:30 from an overnight rain, washed clean of yesterday. 

Houses remain dark but for a few dim lights that I spot as I run by. Imagining the early riser of the house quietly making coffee, in their robe and slippers, trying not to wake the family. The newspapers all lying at the end of the driveways, with the news of today still bound in wrappers. Unknown.

There is also a stillness at 5:30. A quiet. Not so much of nature, but of the human world. Not yet broken by the blare of the tv, the hum of the computer, or the starting up of cars heading to work. Not even by conversations at this time of day, which once started, bring back all of yesterday’s news.  The cotton blanket kicked off as the vibration once again ratchets up.

At times as I run beneath the sun or moon, stars or rainbow, rain or snow, or practice by candlelight, I am reminded of the gift I am being given.  A time to see today before anything has been painted on it. A day filled with limitless possibilities. Able to set my own intentions for what I plan to create and drop them into the pause that exists at 5:30am.  Thank you, my friend.

Shhhhhh………
SARAH