Rise and shine

I rubbed my eyes. I rubbed them again. I was dragging. I just wanted to drive back home and jump under the sheets in my bed and go to sleep. But the amazing view in front of me took my breath away. I couldn’t take my eyes off the sun. It was stunning.

Thirty years later and I can still remember the day. I was working on a feature story about a baker in my community. When I told my editor about my story idea, he suggested I offer to help the baker open his shop in the morning. His reasoning was that I would get to watch the baker work. I would have a chance to interview him and I would come away with better detail. (I remember asking if he was going to pay me for doing two jobs. He didn’t like my comment, but he was right about getting better background material by being there first thing in the morning.)

So, I met the baker at his shop soon after he arrived. Let’s call it what it really was. It wasn’t morning, it was the dead of the night. When I gently knocked on bakery door at 3:30 a.m., he greeted me with a flour-covered apron. He looked like he had been working for hours.

He greeted me with a big handshake and showed me around his bakery. We cleaned the kitchen and knead and prepared dough. I helped him organize his incoming orders and map out his next couple of days. He let me help him on one his specialties, a fluffy, soft cinnamon bun coated in white icing that tasted as decadent as it sounds.

I worked with him for two hours, peppering him with questions. At the end, he told me I could come work for him anytime. He said that I might not know much about baking and may be a bit slow in the kitchen, but I made up for my knowledge gaps with a positive attitude. I told him that if my Amish grandmother was still alive, she would’ve loved to hear that.

I walked to my car feeling exhausted. When I looked up, I was stunned to see the most beautiful sunrise I had ever seen. I didn’t dare drive away. I stayed right where I was. I watched the sun break through the mountain and push out its bright orange sunbursts across the valley.

It looked like a Thomas Kinkade painting. My words can’t even begin to “do justice” to the scene that was laid out before me. It was like something out of a movie.

I laughed to myself, because I wouldn’t have seen the sun if I hadn’t been working on my story. I would have been curled up in my bed fast asleep. Instead, I found myself excited about the baker’s story and where I was going to take my readers.

I was fascinated with how things had ended up.

I write more about the beauty of mornings in my piece, Getting an Early Start!, on The Heart of the Matter. I think there’s something romantic and exciting about the late night and early morning hours. Oh, I’m not a morning person. I much prefer the night to mornings, but I’m a romantic at heart. There’s nothing like the sun coming up out of the dark, spreading its rays for all to see.

Are you a morning or night person? What do you love the most about both.

Related Story:

• Getting an Early Start! on The Heart of the Matter.
• A father and son: Two different morning routines
• Fall’s last gasp
• Pulling an all-nighter