Sunrise over the Blue Ridge Mountains

I wonder sometimes if I can remember each sunrise that I’ve witnessed.

I am not an early riser, so my natural routine is not conducive to watching the sun emerge from its nightly slumber. But that doesn’t matter. My mind still wants to believe it can recall the specificity of each instance I which I broke my natural pattern to sit with the stillness of dawn. Of course that’s untrue. I still let myself believe it. This is one bit of nostalgia that I trust to be harmless.

On this particular morning I was making my second drive between Maine and Mississippi. I’d spent the previous night in a small motel surrounded by tourists who were in town for a Dukes of Hazzard convention. Replicas of the General Lee were everywhere. A sure sign of nostalgia if there ever was.

I admit, I was fond of that show as a child as well. Time has a way of revealing and complicating things that were born on innocence and ignorance. The song ‘Dixie” is that way for me, too. I can clearly see how bot the Dukes and “Dixie” romanticize a southern past that for many was anything but romantic. Yet, these were two of the things that were a part of my youth. I can’t take that away, and as a child I was ignorant. So very ignorant.

That’s what I thought about as I drove toward this sunrise. The parking lots behind me were filled with reproductions of my childhood. The road in front was dark and beautiful and leading towards a crack of light. If I’d slept in, I would have missed it.

If I’d slept in I’d have awoken to a teasing from my past. That has been my routine more often than it has not been. But every once in a while I’ll get myself up and break that routine. I almost always do so intentionally, and I am almost always rewarded for it.

This is why I choose to believe in my memories of each time I joined the sun as it rose anew.