I was going to complain about my terrible morning.  But I walked, so let me tell you about my glorious morning instead.

I was up early and out the door by 6:10.  It was chilly out there which is great when one is walking and generating far too much heat. So that was the first good thing.

Then I looked up to see if there were any stars showing. I was really looking to see if there was much cloud cover and wondered if I would be walking in the rain later. But instead I saw stars.

In fact, I saw lots of stars. Then I began looking and peeking through the trees for more stars. It was still quite dark, but the stars would hide, shy around the streetlights. When I got to the walk near the golf course, there were no lights for a longer stretch. And the stars were shining gloriously, majestically, brightly, astoundingly. All those stars. All that light from such a great distance. Traveling for eons to delight me on this last day of September.

I marveled at the stars. I reveled in the stars. I turned on to the main street which is lit by far more lights. I continued on my walk, watching only the strongest, brightest stars still in the sky. Between the coming dawn and the glare of the streetlights, there were only a few stars left. My walk was half done and I turned to get back home.

The sky itself was beginning to lighten. The deep black was turning to smoky gray. The world was turning beneath my feet as I walked toward home.

For a short time, the sky was simply lightening. It went from smoky gray to pearl gray. And then, like the miracle of time, the very lowest edges got a bit of a coral glow. Near the glow the sky was shimmering like the inside of a shell. Nacre. Gorgeous. And then the sky arched upwards, deepening in shades of gray.

I could now see some clouds in the sky. Some wispy white, some heavier and looking like clumps of charcoal. At the horizon, there was more coral and the Carolina pines were silhouetted against the peachy-gray sky. It was beautiful to watch.

Since I live in a development that has taken offense at straight lines, the walk twists and turns. I can walk on one sidewalk, never leaving the road, and face east, west, and south. I twist and turn without ever turning. So my vista kept changing.

The trees arched up and then receded. I next got to see the clouds with underbellies painted with a touch of coral. They still had gray tops but the sun was coming to play. And around the bend, the horizon shifted and now the sun was splashing peach between the upright trunks of the pine trees.

The sky continued to lighten and the clouds were now completely bathed in the soft orange of the sun. The walk was done and my day was so different than I had first imagined it.

For the last two days, I was rudely awakened by the horrid alarm clock. Yesterday, as I swatted the contraption to silence, I gloried in the thought that I could sleep in on Friday. No alarm clock to wake me. I woke at 4:38 and could not fall back to sleep. My day to sleep in wasted in waking early. What a bad start to a day.

Right up until I got outside and looked at the universe in which I live. Lucky me.