Awakening to the Day

I woke up this morning to this status update on my newsfeed:

gratitude list:  my children, their great schools and teachers, our home smelling of back-to-school blueberry muffins, my hubby's hard work, my savior-jesus, health, espresso, water to drink, knowing gods word is true, work, friends and sleep with dreams.

For some reason (maybe the mention of espresso, blueberry muffins, and dreams?), this brought to mind morning time on Luaniua.

I would wake every morning to the shake-shake-shake of our house, rocking on its stilts as the family started to stir.  Mom coming from the rain tank outside with a pot of water, heading towards the single Bunsen burner where she did all her cooking.  The subsequent click, click, click, wooooosh as it caught flame.

It was up to us to get our business done before Mom had breakfast on the table.  The day would officially start after we had all gathered around the Formica-covered plywood that was bolted to the wall of our veranda on hinges, raised during the day to save room.  The veranda, running across the front of the house, was barely 8 feet wide.  At breakfast and dinner, we unlatched the table from the wall, lowered it on its hinges, and clustered around it on canvas chairs and stools made from upturned buckets.

I crawled down the ladder of my loft, and headed out the door to take care of my 'morning business'.  The sun was just peeking through the coconut trees, rising into a sky that was already so deep you could get lost in it.  There were rustlings from the hut next to ours.  A sleepy baby cried before being put to breast.  Chickens were scratching in the gravel path.  Smoke was filtering through the thatched roofs of the huts, the air heavy with the scent of morning cook fires and dew.

I traveled down the familiar path to the beach, relishing as I did every time the moment of breakthrough when the last stand of trees parted and the ocean lay before me.  Cool still from the night, a soft breeze swept off the water to greet me, its clean, salty scent awakening my senses to the day.