Sunrise made itself known through the triple set of doors.

Even that level of glass couldn’t contain the violet and pink light that was slowly seeping over the sleepy country landscape.

It calls me like the siren song. I have to go see it for myself, and push through the triplicate of exit doors, buzzing myself out the last one, and into…glory.

It’s humid already. I can smell the fresh cut hay, and somewhere nearby, a cow is lowing.

I walk across the tiny parking lot, and onto the damp, dew kissed grass. I need to get out from under artificial light, away from overhead lines.

The sky is a pastel pink and purple song, the light flowing over the trees, and through the fields of hay and corn. It brightens and morphs into new beauty as I watch, as if I was turning a kaleidoscope slowly, and the brighter colors of orange and yellow spread along the horizon.

I breathe in my fill of the morning beauty, and return inside and let my coworker go get hers, too.

A storm is churning out there in the gulf somewhere, and we may not see another sunrise like this for a few days.

Heading home after shift change, I’m sitting in line at a fast food restaurant, waiting for my grits.

Straight ahead, I spot an elderly woman sitting by the side of the road.

She’s between the road and the train tracks, and she’s set up a couple of folding tables right there in the grass.

She spread a sheet on the tables, and there are baskets of peaches, tomatoes, and I think okra peeking up out of a basket. She sits with her head down and her hands clasped in her lap. I see cucumbers and squash, and I figure it’s fresh from her garden. It’s 7:30am.

I make a mental note to look for her again. I want to stop and buy something, but I have neither the cash nor the fridge space here in my travel job motel.

Driving toward my small town away from home, there is a biplane swooping and diving over the fields. The corn is fringed with yellow tassels, a sight I can’t get used to this early in the year, after living for years in the Midwest. Up there, it’s growing blue green and tall still.

Back at the motel, I turn on my electric blanket, toss my key card on the dresser, and sit to eat my grits. It’s my time to wind down. I’ve arranged my room as I do every week, trying to bring a sense of normalcy to my nomadic existence.

After a few minutes, I call my husband, who is just starting his day, and he says good night.

It was.