Sunrise

At about 5:30 there's a faint red blush in the sky over Vinalhaven, and then not much happens for the next hour. Each morning's dawn is slightly different. Yesterday there was a brisk breeze from the north, and streams of seagulls sailed into it. I didn't see any going south but they must have returned, perhaps out of sight over the land, flying in a grand circle, all for the show-off pleasure of maneuvering straight into wind without flapping their wings. Yesterday's sky was also mostly cloudy except for a band of clear hugging the east horizon, affording just enough room for a full concentrated red rise. This morning's sky was cloudless; I was surprised to see how much red tinted the blue unhindered.

The hour seems to go very slowly. It's not just that I'm not ready to get up; it's peaceful and quiet, this transition between night and day. The ocean is calm, the light is slowly brightening, and the only wireless transmissions are my own, exploring the coast un-Googled. I know from the map that the orientation of this view is down east, a straight line over Vinalhaven, through Stonington and Acadia, all the way to Lubec. I take the hour to fly from here to there, calmly, fixed-winged like a gull. In this lovely hiatus, it's hard to believe the earth is really spinning, that the sun will rise soon enough.

Then the red starts to turn to orange and the first piercing ray shoots across the bay. In the space of 5 minutes he's fully up, white and brilliant, the earth now spinning much faster, or so it seems. The mood is broken. Various imperatives beckon. I park my little hour of reverie on the hard tarmac of the day.