“Dreaming when dawn’s left hand was in the sky…” Dawn’s hands are still firmly in her pockets. The sky has that long-before-dawn quality and it doesn’t need the clock to tell you that you should be asleep.

So it is three thirty in the morning and you are twiddling your thumbs in bed. Do you get up and work? Switch on the lamp and read? Turn over and doggedly try to get some more much-needed sleep? You hear movement downstairs… How does she know you are awake??? You haven’t actually moved yet… but you hear that odd noise she makes when she yawns and stretches, hear the inevitable bounce of the ball as it is dropped into place for when you get up… Okay. That settles it. Up and at ‘em then.

Cuddle dog, throw ball, kettle and computer on…

You open the door into the night and the small dog exits. Make coffee, mutter to yourself…

Small dog returns and drops a ball at your feet, except it isn’t a ball… she’s been gardening again and that is the last of the lily bulbs… That wakes you up…

You dive for the bulb… not so much to rescue the plant as because you know they are toxic for dogs… which was why you planted them in the big pot in the first place, deep, out of the way and not easy to dig. Well, that didn’t work…

She whines in the kitchen where the bulb is safely on the windowsill… you groan knowing you are going to have to get out there and clear up whatever she has been doing. But not yet. The sky is still dark.

Throw clothes on, time to walk the dog.

It is one of those mornings when you don’t really want to be where you are. It seems not to matter that even in this palest of pre-dawn glows the daffodils are nodding their heads in the breeze, that the air has lost it chill and there is that excited tone in the song of waking birds. The day doesn’t feel quite right. Maybe it just started too early. Somehow you feel the change in the air. Maybe it is just the burgeoning of spring… it gets you every year and the moors call, sliding heathery fingers in your gut and pulling you home. Maybe it goes deeper than that.

You glance back through the pages of your life and see chapters open and close, knowing there is a rhythm there, a song whose melody is only half heard and elusive. Your footsteps mark time in the silent morning. You don’t know when you begin that book whether it will be an epic fantasy or a scientific treatise, you can’t know if it will be comedy or tragedy, though you can be pretty certain there will be elements of both in there somewhere. You don’t even know how many chapters… or if there will be a sequel.

In retrospect you can discern the flow of the story so far and see where and why the chapters began and ended. You can never skip forward though and see what will come. Just follow the story and get a feel for it, learning the characters that weave in and out of its pages; the page will not turn until you have read every word.  Every so often, as with all good books, the tension builds and you can tell something is going to happen. Good or bad you just don’t know… you have to wait and see, reading each word, savouring them… the only way to get to the next page.

The morning feels like that… you can feel a new chapter building, a vaguely exciting apprehension of change. You could worry about it, go back over previous chapters and see where the clues lie; you could imagine every possible scenario that might unfold… or you can just keep on reading, focussed on the words  as they pass before your eyes, enjoying the story… it is the quickest way to find out what happens next.

The dog bounds out of the undergrowth to your side, tongue lolling, a disreputable ear bent back. Does she even bother reading? No… she just takes joy in the morning. She’s not a bad teacher.