The silhouettes of the horses in the pre-dawn dark look two dimensional. They move at the same pace as me along the lodge pole fencing at the horse farms. Some distant frogs croaking and the din of morning traffic; it’s a roar that builds from a nearby valley where the east-west interstate runs from Seattle to Boston. The sound of cars and trucks caroms off the valley walls and collects there, a constant white-noise hum like some massive heater fan pushing air through a vent. That sound could put me to sleep.

But wow, the feeling of caffeine in the morning when you’ve had too much but just before it turns bad. Like any drug, that momentary pause at the top of the roller coaster, how big the world can seem when you’re at the top.

The moody layers of pre-dawn light go from black to gray to indigo. A cool wind portends coming rains. When the rains get started they burrow in. The tips of the tall Doug Firs and pines, cut-out diorama scenes. The kind of etched handiwork you see at Christmastime in German candle arches meant for the mantel. Landscape lighting on the mansions make them look like toy homes, fantasies of a different life.

Just the sound of my footfalls and the wind, some scraggly leaves. The way a horse can make terrifying sounds in the dark. Maybe my morning walks are ritualized like a user’s habits; maybe I don’t care.

How to Feel Connected to Where You Live

Go be in it, alone. At the quiet hours when no one else is around. Use your senses and try not to think. See what comes next, and breathe it in. Give yourself over to where you’re from.

No stars getting through the clouds, just a smear. The reflection of the earth’s ambient light like some candle wick gone down too low. Then the cocks start crowing like a morning alarm right on cue, like the church bells in a medieval village. The slow movement of fall as the leaves hold on but look spent. The rains and winds that would comb the dead. Just like a drug, it never disappoints.

Categories: Addiction, Creative Nonfiction, Poetry

Tags: Creative Nonfiction, pacific northwest, prose, spirituality