What I didn't miss today

Believe it or not I left my house this morning at 7:10 a.m. Many of you think I'm totally lying about this, because you know that I am not a morning person. Yes, I know that is an understatement. I often cite an article in The New York Times to justify my owl existence. It seems the early bird does not always get the worm. Read these articles to find out more. It turns out there are a lot of people who think about this stuff besides me, which is exciting.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/27/fashion/27SLEEP.html?_r=1

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D00E4DC153CF931A15751C1A96E958260&scp=3&sq=larks+owls+sleep&st=nyt

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D03E2DA1E39F930A25754C0A961958260&scp=7&sq=larks+owls+sleep&st=nyt

But today owl forced into being a lark with droppy red eyes did get to see the most amazing shades of pink, clouds and purple mountain majesty sunrise this morning. It looked like a really good movie set. I didn't miss this moment, because I finally wasn't running late; I had just wrote last night's blog about what are we missing, so I took the time to look around, and notice my mountain backdrop for its wonder.

So I will concede that once in awhile it is worth getting up early. Not every day, but sometimes, because the light is different in the morning. Now I understand why Monet got up early to paint, and why he painted a series of paintings of the same scene at different times of the day to capture the changing light.

Read this article in Time magazine about this unique collaboration from afar:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1573943-2,00.html

"Perhaps the greatest gift Japan gave Monet, and Impressionism, was an incandescent obsession with getting the play of light and shadow, the balance of colors and the curve of a line, just right — not the way it is in reality, but the way it looks in the artist's imagination. "I have slowly learned about the pattern of the grass, the trees, the structure of birds and other animals like insects and fish, so that when I am 80, I hope to be better," Hokusai wrote 16 years before his death at age 89. "At 90, I hope to have caught the very essence of things, so that at 100 I will have reached heavenly mysteries. At 110, every point and line will be living." Monet spent the last decades of his life painting his water lilies, and then painting them again, until he lost his sight in quest of an elusive, transcendent perfection that might best be called Japanese."

I learned this fact on my trip to Australia, instead of bypassing the tour I actually took it, and I learned a few things. For instance, Monet was greatly influenced by the great Japanese wood block print artists Utagawa Hiroshige, Katsushika Hokusai and Kitagawa Utamaro.

You know the famous lilies paintings...they wouldn't exist without the influence of Japanese art. Finding out Monet put in a Japanese lily garden on his property opened my eyes. It gave me a more expansive feeling for Monet and his work. Again, this fact wouldn't be in my cache if I hadn't stopped to listen to the tour guide.

So today and tomorrow, notice the sunrise (if you're awake), the sunset (more likely for me), and take the time to stop and just be in the moment. The truth is you never know what each moment can bring.

And today I want to congratulate my hero, my friend MB, who is full of courage and is about to unfold her own myth and embark on a life adventure. In the words of Rumi:

"...But don't be satisfied with stories, how things have gone with others. Unfold your own myth without complicated explanation, so everyone will understand the passage we have opened you."