Clermont, Florida
Sitting in the Orlando airport, I am seeing my second Florida sunrise of the week. The first was a couple of days ago - a nice, contemplative time of day as always. We have just finished our last round as spring break softball fans in central Florida, watching our daughter's team play 9 games over the week that we were here.
We experienced the full complement of Florida weather -- scorching sun in cloudless skies for two days, followed by a stretch of on-again-off-again showers, and a grand finale of violent electrical storms with torrential sheets of rain and tornado warnings. The only thing we didn't get to see was the tornado itself.
Not being in the steady habit of sunrise walking, I forgot to add an hour for daylight savings time to my sunrise chart. I knew immediately when I walked outside at 6:10am that the dawn was not 10 minutes, but 70 minutes away - full darkness.
It was an opportune error. There was no rain, but the air was cool and moisture-laden, the kind of air that feels like a caress. The darkness just before dawn is a gentle time in general. Quiet streets, quiet people, quiet world. It is increasingly rare to find quiet in our world. Television screens invade every public space; beeps, buzzers, and audible alerts of an infinite variety create a perpetual background. At pre-dawn they are at least diminished. Our minds are allowed to think for themselves, uninterrupted for just a little while.
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