I've just realized. A year ago today, I came very close to death. It makes one think, you know?
True, the events of the last couple of years, have made me lose myself a little--like shutting a book without marking the page you were reading...then going back a few years later, trying to remember where in the story you were.
So, sometimes I spend a little time--not a lot, but just now and then, thinking about my past. Who I was, what I was, where I came from, what motivated me...that sort of thing.
These are MY hills--the hills on the other side of the valley/river from where I grew up. The hills that I stared at, as I stood under an ancient apple tree, before sunrise one June morning in 1979. Standing barefoot in the dew-soaked grass, literally watching the world around me, grow lighter by degrees. I was 18, and had snuck out of the house, without even my dog-pal Shamrock, for company.
In the dark that is only a shade lighter than midnight, at 4am, I listened to the cricket's strident song, and watched as the black skies with their icy, glittering stars, slowly turn cobalt blue, than pale blue--then, a robin chirruped tentatively. A mourning dove cooed its sad song. Within in minutes, the world erupted into an abundantly glad chorus of birdson.
The sky over the hills across the river, changed to pale blue, then began to turn the colour of roses. Faster and faster, the rose colour crept climbed above the hills--then, the first vermilion glow of the sun tinged the rim of the hills, and before I knew, the scarlet sunrise was upon me, bathing the trees and sky and me, in it's resplendent glow.
This is my sunrise, my trees, my sky, my wind, my water. This is a part of who I am, and, though time has taken it from me, it's still a small part of who I always shall be.
I remember, because it's forever imprinted in my mind. It's a part of my soul, now. Well, and I wrote it all down in my journal, ha-ha.
Me (as Polonius) and a teenage classmate rehearsing "The 15 Minuite Hamlet" on the set of The Dining Room, at the local community college, 2002. Due to time constraints, plans to perform the short play were scrapped after just three rehearsals.
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