When I left for work this morning, from my place far above the clouds, it was so clear and peaceful of a morning that I turned off the radio and gazed admiringly at the silhouetted Mount Baker, against the stark, starry backdrop. It reminded me of the crisp winter nights of my youth, spent delivering pizza 'till 4AM as I worked my way through college. When the sky was clear, and the road was deserted, and the rest of the city was in a deep slumber, it was the most peaceful and serene feeling I can remember. Of course, wired on caffiene and cranking Slayer 'South of Heaven' on my 720 Watt boom stereo probably didn't look so serene to any passers-by, but it was certainly a time I remember fondly. Alone on the road at 3AM in the sleepy Fraser Valley, you own it. And when the sky is as open wide and crystal clear with the frost nip in the air, there is no better way to feel alive. In the 10 months I owned that car, I put 78,000 KM on it... virtually all of it, late night driving.
So this morning, as I'm driving and fondly reminiscing days gone by I thought of how I've had this beautiful BMW for 13 months now and have only put 34,000 km on it. Yeah, that's still a lot - but I REALLY used to love driving... what happened?
I concluded that it was something about being so 'awake' so late that was exhillerating... these days, I don't make it past 11PM too often. Ah, but there's something about this time of year, when you can be on teh road at 6:30AM and have a whole hour of darkness to look forward to ... of course, you also hit rush hour, so the whole 'peaceful' aspect is gone...
Anyway, the lower mainland has a dense, socked in, low laying fog right now. When I got to the bottom of the hill, I was thick in it, and the serenity was gone. A few more blocks and I merged onto the busy highway... serenity really gone now.
I started thinking about how short that moment of peace was, and truely, how narrow of a window we have at thistime of year to have these loooong nights and short days. Today there will be just over seven hours of daylight... the shortest day of the year being just over two weeks away.
Hey - that means that we're under three weeks from having the days getting longer again! Yay! Summer is on it's way! Hopefully though, I'll be able to get one or two more nostalgic mornings in before the dark days of winter have gone.