5:30a starts

Several times a month I get shifts that start at 5:30am.  I used to love these shifts because the early start meant early end, and time for other projects.  Then I learned to hate the early starts because rising at 5 am in order to be coherent by 5:30am is a bear.  The insistent alarm clock forces my eyes open in the dark, dark predawn morning.  I try to calculate, without being fully awake, how much more time I can spend in bed before I have to get up -- how much time will it take to make coffee, get the computers up and running and situate myself in the office?  All I want to do is roll over and go back to sleep.

But since I have been back in Oakland, I am learning to love these early starts again.

I sit in the dark, coffee cup in hand, working -- and then magic happens.

Slowly, the sun peaks out over the hill across from the office where I have been doing my work.

 On this day (the one in the picture, not today) the sun was forceful, loud, making itself known and basking in its own glory.

 It was so beautiful that I stopped working to take these pictures.

But yesterday morning, it was another kind of beautiful (that I just appreciated and didn't photograph):  low clouds and fog hugged the hillside as the sky brightened behind.  It looked like a cool morning had brought a chill to the hill, so it pulled up the foggy blanket to warm up.

Over the course of the morning, the fog receded quietly and gently; perhaps allowing the hillside the soft wake up that I didn't get.

I was in awe of that beauty -- a privilege I get to view on these early morning starts.

Also, I have the perfect excuse for a mid-morning or mid-afternoon nap.