While the world sleeps

This morning is not unlike so many that I have begun in the past. Up long before the sun, I prepare myself and my camera equipment for the wonders that await in a few hours.

I will again be taking my trusty old pickup truck to the refuge that has become my second home.

But what strikes me the most during these very early hours is how much my soul and my heart are vulnerable.

I walk downstairs in this empty house, to put on a small pot of coffee. The dogs wake as I approach, and look at me as if to wonder why on earth daddy is getting up in the middle of the night.

And it is ghostly quiet.

Outside the windows is the black of night. And nothing stirs. No one is awake. But me.

There is a peace in this solitary life, but a loneliness that is at times overwhelming.

I am the only human being here.

I do not hear the voices of my children. Now grown, they no longer live with me.

I do not hear the voice of my wife, as we have been divorced for years.

I do not hear the voice of my lover, for I have none.

I do not hear the voice of my father, as he lives with his girlfriend.

I do not hear the voice of my mother, nor will I ever again.

In my head and in my heart, she does still speak to me. She used to live here. And in some ways, she still does.

I can gaze at her photo on the mantle. And still see her smile, and imagine her voice, and her laugh, and our wonderful conversations. The silly puns she used to love to sling, and we'd go back and forth and chuckle over how bad they were, between us.

She was the one who inspired my love of nature, and why I am up at this ungodly hour.

But this life is one of stark and often brutal silence.

I am glad she still speaks to me. Because at times, she is the only company I ever have.

While the world sleeps, I arise to see what I can capture with my cameras.

And I weep.