For the past month I've been driving my son to work at 5:45 every morning. Until the time changed it had begun to get light as I was coming home at 6:05/6:10, but it wasn't always like that. And now we've been plunged back into the world of black streets and yellow/orange streetlights.

The birds are in fact early--they trill and call through the darkness that is still and hushed and waiting. I'm not often truly awake till I step out the kitchen door and I'm reminded that the atmosphere everywhere doesn't match my house. Weather is going on out here--either a gusty wind from the south that threatens to rip the door right out of my hand and send me flying off the step, or like this morning a chillier nip in the morning air than we've been having. Yesterday I walked out in shirt sleeves and was cold all morning. Today I did remember my cordouroy jacket and was able to enjoy the rain-touched chill that brushed my face and woke me up fully.

We pull away into the night and our neighborhood is quieter than it will be all day. There are very few cars on the road and several of them I recognize. We have become part of a world that has just begun it's daytime routine, and so far little or nothing has messed it up. Yet. We generally pull away from the curb at our house at 5:50, and if we make the corner of Midwest Blvd. and Reno by 5:55 there will generally be a city bus sitting at the bus stop. I've discovered that the driver often runs into the McDonalds there on the corner to pick up breakfast.

We slide past the post office where there is a car or two with parking lights on in the lot. Past the park and the ball diamonds and the empty-but-not-for-long pool. With a right on Harroz Lane we're in the home stretch, usually about 5:57 where we pass the mechanic who is waiting for the bus that trails us. I pull up in front of the fire hydrant just because I can and my son gathers his things and thanks me for driving him (every morning without fail. He's a good kid.) and then I'm off. I generally take a different way out of the parking lot every morning just to shake the routine up a bit (rabble rouser that I am). I might drop off a library book on the way home, or fight the urge to stop for cappuccino or even sneak a donut while I have a few delicious minutes all to myself. The bus pulls in to Harroz Lane to pick up the mechanic as I make my exit and depending on what I do, I may see him stopped in front of Target before I leave that busier section of town and get into the residential area and home.

During the day when I'm out and about there are too many people to recognize routine like this. It's a rather rhythmic way to start the day and it gets my writer mind flowing. I might miss it when he gets his drivers license. I guess I'll know if/when I'm up before dawn for no apparent reason.