Last Sunrise of 2011

 

   Last sunrise of 2011. Was scraping the car this morning. Early. A car with frozen doors. Every winter the Honda gets frozen solid, just about this time. Every year, I have to climb over the back seat, and perch precariously over the wheel, just to get it started. Hoping that it will thaw, that the ice encasing it will melt, and it will make it down the hill. The crows seem to have a good laugh, every time I do this….they sit on the other side, watching, laughing at nothing in particular, eating stale bread I’ve left out for them. I’m a sucker for crows.

    This year, it’s the sparrows who roost in our yard…hundreds of them, perhaps thousands of twittering little bodies. They watch and wait for their moment. They look hungry. And they’re not always eyeing the seeds scattered on the ground, or at feeding stations. I  sense they’re organized, like in Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds”, one of my favourite movies. I wouldn’t mind being in a Hitchcock movie. None of the cars in the movie  are frozen in ice.

    As I chip away at the car, I can see the sunrise growing steadily above the tree line. I know, for  a fact, that it will not last long. Seize the moment, is what I  think. I sprint for my camera and the big lens, my fingers frozen. I snap just a few. It’s good. It’s beautiful. Nothing needed to make it more than that.

    Just like a New Year. And even though, my car will finally be dug out the ice, so it can go down the hill, 2012 is just around the corner, just like this perfect sunrise, and there is no downhill. “We will open the book. It’s pages are blank.We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called ‘Opportunity’, and it’s first chapter is New Year’s Day”. (Edith L. Pierce)