Nova Scotian Autumn Sunrise (© Magi Nams)
The looming winter pushes darkness deeper and longer into our Nova Scotian mornings, the light now dim until well past 7:30 a.m. Yet this extended darkness brings with it benefits – silver moonlight cast onto the earth well past my alarm ringing, or exquisite shades of sunrises viewed with eyes unstuck from night ‘sand.’ This morning, stunning shades of gilded pink and purple rippled in the eastern sky before rain set in.
Throughout the day, while I edited photographs, wrote blog posts, and inched my way through a pivotal conflict scene in my novel-in-progress, barrages of rain pounded down. Wind whipped branches wildly, and sun episodically blasted through the cloud layer. It was as though the turmoil I wrote in the book reflected the turmoil beyond my window.
Before supper, I abandoned the computer, the pivotal scene written, the chapter ended. I walked our access road as far as the woods, the gravel washed clean by pounding rain and swept clear of leaves by wind. In the woods, red squirrels skittered up tree trunks and raced along kinked and wooden arboreal highways high above Pepper’s head, driving her frantic with excitement. When I turned to retrace my steps, my eyes were caught by clouds – brush-strokes of cirrus painted haphazardly across the blue, and a bank of cumulus to the north, all white and blue and lit by sun and blown by wind eastward toward a new day.
