It is just after 4 AM. I think I am going to go to bed soon, but I feel like there is something urgent lurking under the fog of my exhaustion and although I think it is unlikely that I will be able to get it out, I am pushing myself to stay awake for as long as possible in the hope that it will break through.
The last time I went to sleep was at 9 AM on Monday morning, after staying awake through all of Sunday night. I can’t remember the last time I pulled an all-nighter, but this time it felt good. Just after 6 o’clock, it occurred to me that the sun was going to rise soon, so I drove to Goldsboro as fast as I could and sat on the riverbank as the sun ascended past the horizon. Unfortunately, in my sleep deprived state I had neglected to consider the cloud cover, and while there was a small band of sky that turned a lovely pink color, the sunrise itself was less than satisfying.
Additionally, I’d forgotten how loud the morning can be. I savor the night for its quiet, and I tend to think of the early morning in the same way. While it was free of human noise, though, the cacophony of the birds this morning was enough that I had a feeling similar to that of being at a concert or a loud bar, when the volume is so great and the quality so discordant that it permeates your brain, destroying the capacity for coherent thought. This was no gentle chirping, but a full on aural assault.
To maintain the peaceful center I’d achieved during my night of solitude and had hoped to enhance through communion with nature, I focused instead on the soft and placid steam rising slowly, almost meditatively, from the TMI towers. I let it carry me up, sometimes curling around the flared edges of the concrete walls before fading into the less graceful clouds that covered the sky.
I noted once, in high school, that from certain angles, the TMI clouds were obtrusive enough to block the sunrise from view. I resented them for it. This morning, I was grateful for their calming presence.
