Endings and Beginnings

“Daylight in the swamp!”, Grandpa T would bark out at 4:30 am on the opening morning at deer camp. That old wakeup call from his lumber camp days was a stark message to those of us spending our first season out at camp that it was time to trade the toasty warmth of a sleeping bag for feet on the cold camp floor.

Each morning he would rustle us young ones out of the sack in a similar fashion. And each new morning brought the excitement of the unknown and the promise of new adventure. This might be the day to harvest a trophy buck, to spend an entire day fruitlessly pursuing the elusive maker of a monster set of tracks, to go stir crazy with boredom in a blind or at a post, or to crash through thin ice while crossing a beaver pond then hoping not to freeze to death before getting back to the fire at camp.

By the end of that first deer season, “Daylight in the swamp” became less of an annoying wakeup call and more of the promise that even the most potentially mundane new day at deer camp was far superior to the best day ever of junior high school.

Sunsets are celebrated and for good reason. Obviously, they are beautiful and while most folks are snuggled in tightly and snoring deeply at sunrise, most everyone is awake to view the sunset.

The Northwoods is an epic place to see the setting sun. There are endless vantage points high upon both the Penokee Range and Basalt Ridges to bear witness to the day’s fiery end. And viewed from the shores of Little Girl’s Point or Saxon Harbor, one can almost hear our thermonuclear reactor sizzle as it melts into the cold waters of Gitchii Guumi.

But a sunset is just that, a sunset.

Anything government can do that will actually help you will eventually sunset, bonus plans sunset, benefits sunset, lives sunset, relationships sunset, suns set. A sunset is the ending. Whether it was the best day ever or the worst day ever, the setting of the sun is the death of that day. The end.

And while there is not a famous sunrise Strip and the biggest selling song about a sunrise involves a heartbroken cowboy lamenting an ill-fated love triangle over a bottle of tequila into the dawning hours, the nerdy bookish sunrise deserves the same reverence and attention as the smoke show cheerleader sunset.

Most mornings I stand before the patio door coffee cup clenched in hand and witness the birth of a new day. At first light there is a tease, a dramatic splash of rich colors cast by a sun flirting below the horizon like an ecdysiast from the days of yore flirting behind the fringes of a sheer curtain.

The clouds then turn deep shades of plum as well as wild shades of pink and peach, a slow-motion kaleidoscopic orgasm of light and color akin to a visual rendition of the climactic orchestral Theme To 2001-A Space Odyssey, followed by the sun then bursting over the horizon with such drama and majesty that one can feel the earth rotate under foot. And so, a new day is born.

Unless we become trapped in Groundhog’s Day, we will never live exactly the same day twice. And with each beautiful sunrise comes not the promise of a same old same old ending, but the promise of a new and possibly better day, and possibly the best day ever.

Perhaps that is what Grandpa T meant to impart when he barked out, “Daylight in the swamp!”