Dawn Light*
2017 began on a deeply cold, snowy December night–right after I’d written 2016’s winter letter titled “Gratitude.” That evening my quirky hiatal hernia twisted a bit more. And spawned pneumonia; Christmas in the hospital; three trips to Seattle; surgery and recuperation there; a couple months on a liquid diet; cranky knees; fear. Nothing really unmanageable, but a breathtaking trapdoor drop into older age and mortality. For too much of the winter, I sought the shelter of a blanket and a book. Gratitude seemed gratuitous.
By early June mornings, usually in my nightgown, I headed to the porch and my magic rocker–listening to the neighbors—magpies, puppies, and mothers running late for work–feeling the heat of dawn light on my shoulders, its breeze on my face.
| “Make me laugh, you make me cry, you make me forget myself.” Rodney Crowell “It Ain’t Over Yet” from Close Ties. |
Now, I write from the leeward side of the year—that was in the end, spun together with the finest gold of friendship. And with priceless gifts from our luminous, elegant universe—notwithstanding the tragedies and incomprehensible human behavior we’ve witnessed.
This afternoon, I remember friends who crossed winter miles to visit and advocate; delivered chicken soup, pot roast, tapioca pudding, and critical helpings of matter-of-fact concern. I remember gifts of silence and acceptance; research; patience; lavishly-offered time; wise nudges; wide-open hearts and homes. I’ve made wonderful new friends. And come to treasure longstanding friendships that much more.
These memories shine: friends from across the country and nearby who joined me on the porch among this summer’s profusion of geraniums and tomatoes; the annual sweet baptism of music and sky at the Red Ants Pants Festival; Brewers baseball games; day trips to Butte and Basin, Ramsay and Little Prickly Bear Creek; a crazy-colorful outing up the North Fork to the Walter tribe; an invigorating dive back into the details of historic preservation at State Historic Preservation Review Board meetings; the curative power of Puget Sound from Carol’s wide-windowed living room; the crackling energy of presenters and conversations at the Ivan Doig Symposium and the Montana History Conference; sun-dappled lunches; fire pit-warmed backyard fellowship; the miracle of FaceTime, Facebook, phone, and WhatsApp conversations; the raucous, breathtaking music that Parsonsfield brought to our little jail-turned theater; memories, words, and images that became mine to knit together here at my
| The hour is early The whole world is quiet A beautiful morning’s about to ignite I’m ready for danger I’m ready for fire I’m ready for something to lift me up higher Life’s been good, I guess My ragged old heart’s been blessed With so much more than meets the eye I’ve got a past I won’t soon forget You ain’t seen nothing yet I’m still learning how to fly. Rodney Crowell “Still Learning How to Fly” |
desk; and even in those long days when smoke stole our view, the gift of standing on the earth, in this life, in my bare feet.
I cannot imagine this year (well, any year) without books—and the prodigious appetite of my Kindle. My favorites—most of which presented themselves when I needed them: Amor Towles, A Gentleman in Moscow; absolutely everything by Penelope Lively, but especially Dancing Fish and Ammonites and Moon Tiger; Diane Athill, Somewhere Towards the End: A Memoir and Alive, Alive Oh; Nina Riggs, Bright Hour: A Memoir of Living and Dying; Abigail Thomas all over again; Laurie Lee, A Rose for Winter; Ken Follett’s twentieth century trilogy and Column of Fire; Margaret Laurence, The Stone Angel; Louise Erdrich, The Round House; Pete Fromm, The Names of the Stars; Yrsa Daley-Ward’s poetry Bones; George Hodgman, Bettyville; Sherman Alexie, You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.
*Dawn Light is my single most dog-eared Diane Ackerman book. Ackerman writes every chapter as a hymn to the miraculous, never-guaranteed return of light each morning. For so many souls, for us, daybreak too often brings uncertainty and fear, hunger and pain. In this coming year—even the complicated and troubling one likely to unfold–may you and all sentient beings shake off night’s shadows in peace and wonder and good health.
“I wake, and when I do the beauty of the world, however fleeting, fills me with an incontestable joy . . . . I need only allow it in. Born into a world of light, my senses mature and will decay. But until they do they are gateways to the mysterious kingdom in which I find myself, one I could not have imagined, a land not entirely of hope and glory, yet no less beautiful for that.” Diane Ackerman “Dawn Light”
