Chopin Pinao Concerto #1

We wake to Chopin Piano Concerto #1 the second movement Romanze (Larghetto). I don't know how it happened. We bought a radio alarm for S's parents for Christmas and somehow ended up giving it to ourselves. It has the capability of playing a CD and waking you up to your favorite song. We resisted You Got Me Babe by Sonny and Cher because of Groundhog Day implications. Chopin seemed somehow the right choice. We started with the first movement of Concerto #1, but the orchestra was far too raucous. We wanted to ease into the day, especially at 5:45. The second movement starts off with the orchestra just gently rousing you to a lovely simple piano solo, almost like a nursery song played on a music box. The song is then repeated with variations to get the blood moving. I imagine Chopin composing the little tune to rouse George Sand after a night of revelry or maybe as a way of making up for the fight they had the night before. Perfect for getting up on a coldish morning. The thing is to get up before the piano solo starts, otherwise it can lull you back to sleep. This morning was completely clear, all the stars out. It was a chilly 10 C which doesn't sound too bad, but yesterday it was 16 C. We entered the house sweating from our labors. Not this morning. A bracing but not rude welcome to the new day.

Bears in the Early Morning

Frankly, the first worry was bears. Humans have an uneasy relationship with the Ursa species on the north shore of Vancouver. They like us. They really like us. We thought we were immune because of our proximity to a major thoroughfare until a year ago when S heard a snuffling sound on the back lawn and we watched as a lone, large dark figure rolled on the lawn in ecstasy with our large, squirrel-proof bird feeder. The signs all over the neighborhood this summer didn't help, not just printed signs either. That pile they call scat (sp?) with all those berry seeds mixed in for texture. The broken fences. Then there was the friend we met on the way out of Safeway one morning on our second 5:45 walk who remarked that a bear had visited in the night and had made a sorry mess of the neighbors garbage all over his lawn. Generally, the kindest, gentlest man we know, he was beside himself with fear and rage. Oh, and he lives just beside the most isolated spot on our walk – just by the Hydro wires. Bears have that effect on us. Even having grown up in Alberta, I have never feared bears until I came here. Now they are our terrorists. They saunter down streets and strike fear in the hearts of the most sanguine. So as the darkness gets longer and the sunrise later, we wonder if we will come nose to nose.

Smells

The sun didn't come up on the walk today which makes me wonder: When we go on daylight savings time (or is it when we go off of it?) will we see the sun again? Sun or no sun, the smells are delectable. There is a smorgasbord of smells. Pine/spruce in the early walk, then sage, a little bit of lavender and oregano, I think. Then there is the smell of rain forest earth like no other smell – sort of dank with the smell of the sea and earthworms mixed in. There is something about the humidity in the air which brings all of this to the fore. Sort of puts you in touch with that dust from which we came and dust to which we go. We walk the distance between in our lives and its better to walk it than to sit it. And it is not just the illusion that we are getting somewhere; it is filling our lungs with the air around us and making us part of that creation, that interminable ongoing process we love to think we are above and so beyond. Uh, uh. Part of it, humbled by it, attuned to it, mindful of it if you walk in the early morning like God in the Garden. I think it allows me to absorb and appreciate the creatures I will encounter in the day, especially the humans. Speaking of which, lots of joggers today; lots of dog walkers; and one dog jogger. Fifty percent of passersby say, "Good Morning". One quarter say, "Good Morning" first. I looked at the face of the clockwork man in the orange coat (who never says hi) as we passed this morning. It was a gentler face than I remember... or maybe it was mine.