Because I have to head off to be on TV for the (ahem) third time this week (and, in an unrelated aside, what normal person is ON TV three times in a week?) I'm going to leave you with something that first appeared five years ago tomorrow, something I actually noticed again yesterday morning as I was taking an early (at least for me) run through Lower Harbor Park.
Have a great weekend. Back with something brand new Monday!
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(as originally posted 12/2/18)
It’s December already? Nobody asked if that was okay with me!!!
December’s one of those months that I can’t quite decide if I really like; after all, it has the good (Christmas cookies), the bad (cold, and no time to do anything), and the ugly (I turn another year older). But it also has something that happens during this time of the year. It gives me my only chance to see a phenomenon that I otherwise am unable (or unwilling) to experience.
That’s right--December allows me to see my only sunrise of the year.
Those of you who know me know that during most of the year I’m never awake to see a sunrise. The closest I come are those nights in June when I fall asleep a few hours before the sun rises. I’m not complaining, or anything; based on my body clock, that’s just a fact of life. But with the sun rising so late (if at all) during December, it does allow me the opportunity to get out see it come up. . .if, of course, our ever-present cloud bank actually allows it.
I’ll usually get to see my sunrise while out running, and it always seems to occur when I’m out running on the bike path near Picnic Rocks. I’m pretty sure you get the best view of a sunrise in Marquette from there; after all, there must be a reason a bunch of cars are parked in the lot every morning around the time the sun comes up. And I have to admit, the one sunrise a year I see from that location is much different than the sunsets I see from many different locations on a regular basis. The sunsets always seem to be “dirty”, for lack of a better word. When the sun goes down for the night it’s masked by all kinds of gunk in the air, kicked up by the activities of everyone during the day. Sure, the sunsets can be quite vivid, but like I said, they seem “dirty”.
Not the one sunrise a year I see, though. The atmosphere’s had the chance overnight to clean out all the gunk that accumulated in it the previous day, so that when the sun comes up, it comes up undiluted by the flotsam of the previous day. Like the daybreak it heralds, the sun when rising is clean and clear and full of promise. I can see why people enjoy watching it come up, and I’d do it more often myself, if during most of the year the sun just didn’t come up so darn early.
So aside from Christmas cookies, I guess you can add “sunrises” to the list of good things that December brings. I’m not quite sure if those two outweigh the cold and lack of time and the fact that I turn a year older, but at least December has one or two things going for it.
Unlike, say, January. But that’s a topic for another month!
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