Summer Sunrise

​     Sunrise is at 5:20am in Boulder Junction this time of year, but the sun can’t wait that long to wake me. She brightens the sky to gray and starts to peak into my open window just bit before dawn. She blows gently through the screens to brush my cheek and whisper, “the forest is waiting for you already, lazy thing. Come and smell all this oxygen!”
     Despite the fact my bones are resting on the most comfortable bed in the universe, or maybe because of that fact, I’m full of energy and eager to rise and take that first morning look at the water in my bay. I’m surprised by how lovely it is.
Every.      Single.      Morning.
     The best place in the world is this little neck of the northwoods. The best way to view it: with the scent of brewing coffee in the air and a pair of little dogs grrr-ing at my side.
     “We are very scary, we tiny wolves,” they warn that mama deer to keep her distance and her twins on her side of the window screen.
     Mama doe doesn’t give a damn, and because she doesn’t, her twin fawns, momentarily alarmed, laugh them off and dance around again.
     I am home. Welcome to summer as it was meant to be. Summer as the poets describe it. Warm and fragrant and as unlike the kiln hot days in Austin as a pair of eagles is to a swarm of fruit flies. Summer days are long and lush here, hearty and full as ripe strawberries. I jealously hoard every minute.
     “Don’t go yet, the dinner dishes can wait,” that same temptress Sun whispers as she paints the sky pink over my bay and turns the still water into a mirror that reflects the peachy clouds. It’s very nearly my bedtime, but how can I leave her sweetness? I won’t. I’ll stay until she can no longer cling to my side of the world. I am surrounded and sublimated by love.
​Ah Wisconsin.
I hope you sleep well, my friends.

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