I’ve never been a morning person, but my cat doesn’t care. Injured in a fight last year, he’s up pre-dawn, begging to patrol the perimeter of our yard–he won’t stray beyond the fence. This time of year, pre-dawn means 4:15 a.m. or so, and in order to let my husband get some sleep, I get up, feed the cats, watch the sky tuck night behind the horizon, and head out for my walk.
© Quinn McDonald
Life is not always filled with fun, eagerness and joy. Sometimes you have to do work you wish you could palm off on someone else. Sometimes you feel run down and have to wind yourself up. Sometimes you have to attend to duty, suck it up, and stop whining. I live in a land of extremes–extreme drought, extreme heat, extreme beauty, extreme poverty, and extreme laws. There is little middle ground here.
© Quinn McDonald
So this morning, when I saw the sun come up, I just let it feel good. I didn’t think about what was hard in my life, I didn’t think about how much I have to do, I didn’t think about obligations, or money, or responsibility, or the future. I just watched the sun come up.
© Quinn McDonald
The sun came up far North of East. It pushed fingers of light into the sky first. It struggled with the clouds, lighting them from behind, then burning through them. I thought of many metaphors of light and darkness, of sunrise and a fresh day. And then let them go. Sometimes a good sunrise is all you need.
–Quinn McDonald is a writer, artist, and certified creativity coach. Her book, Raw Art Journaling, is being shipped to stores right now.
QuinnCreative 
Thats really beautiful, you must love your self. 🙂
I’m a work in progress, Jamie.
thank you for this post ive just recently put my self in a compitition to put my photos in the melbourne exhibition so check my photos out on the 9 september look for kodie booth, its in the black and white photography assignment, for kids out of home care, so this is a good chance to get a grip in photography. this is where i start.
Good for you, kodie, black and white photography can be a wonderful entry into the world of photography. You may have to post a link to the site, because there seem to be a lot of competitions in melbourne. But I’d love to see your work!
Thank you so much for the pictures and thr reminder to persevere. Sometimes with all the things we do day by day, we neglect our souls. This reminds me to let the soul talk through my art. It helps me face all the other things in life I face. Thank you.
It’s hard sometimes, to persevere. It’s not fun. We often can’t see the purpose or the end. But it almost always is useful and productive.
wonderful photos! I looked up collage on google and you were number 4!!! WOW!
Google shows different things to different people, based on your search history and what you clicked on. When I type Collage into Google, I’m not on the first 2 pages. Sigh.
Ah, but it will show you a lot more than that. Google Insights, for example, will show you which parts of the world search for “collage art”, how it’s changed since 2004, and…well, it’s at least another day gone once you start studying this stuff!
http://www.google.com/insights/search/#q=collage%20art&cmpt=q
OK, an hour later I am fascinated and not getting work done!
so true. I love the photographs. They are absolutely stunning.
Lately I wake up between 05.00 – 06.00 a.m. while I’m not a morningperson at all. For some reason I feel so fresh and alert that I enjoy these bright early mornings with th sun coming up and the birds singing and I make my early coffee plus a light breakfast and enjoy my jolts of energy.
At some point in the afternoon I have a short nap and that seems to be sufficient..
Your cats make sure that you can enjoy these peaceful moments at dawn and dont’ you love them for that 🙂
My cats watch me in surprise when coming to greet them so early and they too love an afternoon nap.
thanks, quinn… slogging it is. vicki 🙂
Generally slogging works fast enough so you get into fun territory.
Lovely. It made me feel better about what I have do, rather than want to do and the grey sky above. Thanks.
I often encourage people to stop working and start playing, but sometimes we just have to do what is in front of us.