Sunrise on the front porch

Morning fire
London, ON
November 2023
This photo originally shared on Instagram

It’s 7:04 on an otherwise uneventful Wednesday morning, a seemingly ordinary day in a seemingly ordinary neighbourhood.

I’m stepping outside with the dog when I notice the light. Brilliant and soft. Soothing and soul-stirring. And oh so fleeting.

Now, here in suburbia, surrounded by houses that are in turn dwarfed by even taller trees, we aren’t blessed with as much sky as we’d like. As the trees have finally lost their leaves, though, there’s just enough of a sliver of sky if we happen to head out at just the right moment on just the right day.

And on this day, there’s just enough (but not too much) cloud cover to take the sun’s rays and turn them into something brilliant before they shoot through the bare branches, get filtered by my corneas, activate my retinas, and are processed deep in my pre-caffeinated brain.

It’s impossible to ignore.

I probably should keep walking the dog, but the light show in front of us tugs at my soul. So I tug back on the leash and take her back inside so I can grab my camera for a quick front porch photo session. The dog looks at me with Schnauzer-like annoyance - she’s used to this from me - and stands just inside the door while I compose and shoot through the canopy.

I grab less than a dozen frames before the light begins to fade. I show this one to the dog because I figure she deserves an explanation before I put the camera away and restart her walk. She still looks annoyed, so I give her an extra hug and fish a treat out of my pocket. She happily munches away as we wander back outside and get into our walking groove.

By the time we get to the first corner, the once-brilliant sliver of sky has gone completely grey. The moment that stopped me in my tracks has now slipped into history. But it persists, in some form, in a bunch of pixels on my camera back home.

Thanks to a very patient dog and a lifelong tendency to dawdle over minutiae when I probably should be sticking to the plan, the memory will be waiting for us when we get back to the house.

I ponder that duality as we explore the now-flat-lit streets. Plans can be broken. Memories don’t wait. Light can touch our souls. Joy must be held onto. Tightly.

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