A tale before supper of sunrise, caterpillars & ghosts

Sunrise over Huron Bay

Ohmygoodness!   I’m feeling a creative high lately.  After at least two months of ho-hum suddenly I’m wanting to blog every day!  (Don’t worry, it probably won’t continue to happen, although you never know, she said with an evil grin.)

You wouldn’t believe what a lovely day it is in the Northwoods.

A perfect, end-of-summer, beginning-of-autumn day.  Oh, the world feels like tepid bathwater.  Oh, the world feels like it exists just to make you happy.  Oh, you can sit on the deck and read books whilst sipping tea again.  Oh, may this never end.

I shall tell you a quick tale before you eat supper.

A tale of sunrise and longing and thoughts and caterpillars and ghosts.

Another sunrise view

This morning Barry went fishing.  For work, I swear.  (Or he swore, anyway.) Truly, he is writing a story for the L’Anse Sentinel about some charter fishermen trolling our Keweenaw Bay.

Because he didn’t need to arrive at the marina until 8 a.m., he dropped me off up on Townline Road and I walked a mile or more home.

In this exquisite warm delight of holding our breath before frost nips all the squash leaves in the garden, I walked.

I walked, one foot, two feet, one foot, two feet.  Leaves, sunlight, pavement. Litter, red leaves, Good and Plenty candy wrapper (oh maybe someday I shall tell you a Good and Plenty story if the Universe agrees).  Delight, delight, delight.

Caterpillar on deck

Then I turned down our road.

OHMYGOODNESS!  A sun like you’ve never seen rising above the horizon.  A sun bright orange and vivid astounding the horizon in its majesty.  I gasped.  I gasped again.

Never a more beautiful sun.  Never in the history of the planet.

(But where’s my camera? the mind began to fret.  I have no camera.  And the sun is rising oh-so-quickly and it shall never be captured, never ever, in this beauty.  Never in THIS moment.  Never in this ever-changing exquisite moment of NOW.)

An inner knowing arose:  “Kathy, just enjoy this moment. Don’t worry about anything.  Be present in this moment.  Not your longing in the next moment.  Not wishing you had your camera.  Not wanting it to be different.”

So I walked, one step, two step, down the road, toward home, toward a cup of coffee, toward the computer, but I stayed with the sun watching it rise. Stayed present to the pink and orange and shifting dark cloud-shapes.  Stayed present to dancing shifting magic, ever-changing, always moving.

Witnessed the thoughts going crazy wanting the camera.  But stayed present with the sun, oh dear reader, I stayed present in the moment and did not (well, not to badly) betray the moment by attaching to thoughts of what-if.

Ghost in our living room?

And, sure enough, when I finally reached home and grabbed the camera and drove the car back to the road to capture the rising sun, oh yes, it wasn’t too late, no it wasn’t too late, and the sun still cast orange shadows against the clouds.

A caterpillar wiggled on the deck afterwards.

A ghost visited our living room.

I have nothing to say about the caterpillar or the ghost because I’m on to the next moment, and the next. Because, dear reader, that is where surely the secret to longing is fulfilled. In our next wild & precious moment, furry or indistinct, painful or beautiful.

Do you think that longing is fulfilled in this present moment or now?  Or have you discovered somewhere else where she completes herself like a sun staining the horizon, like dawn fulfilling its age-old promise to reveal itself?