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12/07/2004: "Early"
I am awake before dawn. I open my eyes and can see faint ambient light coming through the windows from the night sky. There is the distant rumble of an airplane. I turn on the light, attend to the reason I woke, and make coffee.
I will not hear a human voice for an hour or two. I live alone and will not use the radio or TV this time of day. This may sound bleak, but it's also full of possibilities. That voice might belong to one of the clerks at the grocery store, or one of the other customers. If I choose to walk, it may be the crossing guard, whose name is Ann. She had a birthday last week. The CD player in the car is waiting to tell me about the history of American Religion -- the lecturer has an English accent, and his may be the first voice I hear. After I drive for five or ten minutes, I'll be at work. I'm usually the first there. If I'm unlucky the first voice I hear will be that of Simon Girty, the sexton, who always starts a conversation with complaints and fault-finding. I try to avoid him, first thing, and go over to the nursery school to say good morning to the teachers who open it up for the early drop-offs. These are the probabilities and I can't even imagine what other beginnings are possible: once a month I have a truly unlikely eary-morning meeting with someone I never expected to see. It is still dark out; I hear another jet. The only human sounds I hear are the sounds of my body.
