Unexpected Gifts

 

Although I’d set my alarm for 6:30 a.m., relying on my weather app’s assurance that sunrise was at 7:07, I couldn’t go back to sleep. 6:15. My room was taking on a faint light, and I could make out the chairs, table, laptop, and dog sleeping at my feet. I threw off the covers and scooched past June, whose eyes were open but had not moved. I lifted the window cover and, peeking out, I gasped in awe. The entire landscape was enveloped in a thick mist. I hurriedly put coffee on to brew, filled June’s water dish, and threw on clothes. By now, June was up and making her excited noises, barely holding still while I struggled to put on her collar and leash. “Hang on, just a sec!” I admonished, while I poured coffee, grabbed my phone and journal, and stuck a pen between my teeth. Outside, June snuffled out past the paving stones to relieve herself and then, after reaching the end of her leash, reluctantly returned to the porch where I was settling in the rocking chair and balancing my coffee. I touched her rear end and she sat, but then immediately jumped back up, like a canine jack-in-the-box, too excited to relax. I wrapped her leash around my left hand and held my coffee in my right, knowing that it would take very little for her to spring into action. A rustle in the grass, some sound from the neighboring unit, a leaf blowing across the yard- any of these could cause a coffee tragedy. Finally, she lay down next to the rocker, and we both relaxed.

I inhaled the fragrant steam of my coffee and June’s twitching nose dissected and categorized whatever scents were brought to her on the pre-dawn breeze. I wrote, in my mind. I didn’t want to disrupt this by putting my coffee down and opening my journal. I didn’t want to do anything but sit and experience the gift. I did wish for someone to share it with, however. To run inside and say, “You have GOT to come see this!” The mist swirled and flowed over the pastures across the road. Trees disappeared and reappeared, sometimes looking as though they were being flooded by a white wave. The eastern sky grew lighter- yellows, oranges, purples- and I took a few photos with my camera, despite the knowledge that they wouldn’t be able to truly capture what I was seeing with my eyes.

A pickup broke through the cloud wall on the road and disappeared again. A bird flew past, eliciting mild interest from June. I sipped coffee and dandled my fingers along my dog’s neck and ears. I imagined there was bird song, maybe a distant moo or whinny from the farm across the way, but I couldn’t hear it. I was momentarily saddened by the loss of what I used to take for granted, but as the sky grew brighter and brighter, and the mist continued to dance and swirl, I forgot my self-pity and marveled at just how beautiful this world can be. Perhaps it’s just physics and chemistry that causes the sky to be blue, or the sunrise to be orange, or the mist to play hide and seek with the trees, but I believe that the Creator of the physics and chemistry that caused things to be this way, did so with love, knowing the delight we would find in His gifts of natural beauty.

My revery was suddenly and violently broken by June’s leaping to her feet and barking wildly. A young couple and their old – and very soggy- dog had just come around the corner of the bunkhouse, and June was having nothing of it. I quickly shoved her, barking and protesting, into our unit and closed the door. The old dog padded over to me and curiously sniffed my jeans; his fur matted with weeds and dew after walking the trails. "Who is this?" I asked. "Bumble," the young woman answered. "Looks like you had fun this morning!" I said to the quietly panting dog. "We had a great walk," the young man said to me. He waved his arm out over the view. "Isn’t this beautiful?"  “Oh yes,” I agreed, looking out over the misty ocean and smiling, knowing their presence had also been a gift. “It’s absolutely breathtaking.”