17 Apr – I am thrilled this morning to see that the clouds have finally cleared after sitting on top of my city for four days, causing me a horrible headache. I awoke to sun for the first time since Monday morning.
The daylight hours are now noticeably longer than the night time hours. My apartment windows face almost due east making it difficult to sleep much past six without my Air Astana-issued eye mask. The Earth has shifted enough that the early morning light now shines directly into my apartment rather than being obscured for a few extra hours by the nine-story Soviet apartment building across the street.
Monday morning I woke in the early hours of the morning needing to go to the bathroom. My best guess is that it was about 4 a.m. I returned to bed and found myself unable to keep my mind from wandering in all sorts of directions. As more and more thoughts popped into my head I knew I would be unable to fall asleep again.
I lay in bed with my thoughts for who knows how long. Then I heard the call to prayer emanating from the loudspeakers of the nearby mosque. I thought about checking the time on my cell phone yet I did not really want to know. Besides, I was fairly certain it was about five o’clock.
I continued lying there with a glimmer of hope that I might eventually return to sleep. I soon began to hear the birds chirping. Not long thereafter the first light became noticeable in the apartment.
A benefit to rising early
Daybreak
Eventually I gave in to the primal urge to rise with the sun. I opened the curtains to find a gorgeous scene: the sun was still below the foothills of the Altai Mountains off to the northeast and the few wispy clouds floating above those hills were bathed in beautiful colors! I grabbed my camera and snapped several photos, changing the settings each time, attempting to capture the beauty of what I was seeing with my own eyes.
I knew the sun would not rise for a while longer. I checked the time and it was a quarter to six. I also knew that I needed to exercise before I busied myself with other things or simply talked myself out of it. I stretched, catching glimpses of the effects of the rising sun every few minutes. Then I completed my Pilates workout.
My window sills are a little more than twelve inches wide, providing proof of the thick walls and sturdy, warm construction of my building. (According to the locals, anyway.) As soon as I had opened the curtains I knew I wanted to sit on the window sill and watch the sun rise. That is exactly what I did.
I put on a long-sleeved shirt to ward off the chill of the glass against which my arm was pressed. I sat there for quite a while observing the clouds drift off before the sun finally peered over the foothills.
I kept thinking that this would be a great time to be holding a warm mug of coffee…if only I drank coffee. It seemed there should be a fresh pot brewing in the kitchen, filling the apartment with its delicious aroma. I even have coffee that Sean drinks when he is here. Still, no matter how many times I try the delicious-sounding blends and flavors his Mom sends, I just do not like the stuff. So I merely imagined the smell wafting through the apartment to make my morning complete. And what a perfect morning it was – beautiful, calm, peaceful, and relaxing.
