On Watching the Sunrise at 41.93°N 84.62°W

The funeral home has a roof, by a happy accident of design, fit perfectly for watching the sunrise. Not only is it mostly flat, allowing me to sit in a chair facing the east, but the highest ridge also has a small platform which one may comfortably sit upon, with legs resting easily on the gentle slope of the asphalt shingles.

The black night turns a velvet indigo at about 6:00 am. If I were an emperor I'd have my robes dyed in that glorious note and give the purple cloak to a lucky beggar. The colour seeps across the sky a bit like flowing wax. It tends to loose its lustre once it travels a quarter way down the sky, as if it dried out, or dried up. Only on the eastern horizon the molten colour is warmed by the invisible fire.

The terrestrial objects lose the mystery with which the night temporarily mantled them, but curiously, the aspect of the whole gains in proportion, for the blue morning light is, if not the most beautiful, and least the most wholesome. By the end, the colour of the sky is what is called sky blue, that light pastel which glows in the eyes of a few blessed individuals.

The sunrise is best watched in snapshots. I had a candle and a book with me, and every so often looked up to see a new palette or the moon having appear from behind the cloud banks. This way one appreciates each phase with sharp pleasure, otherwise the experience is a bit like watching paint dry.

For the most significant fact of a sunrise is what an ungodly time it takes. Out of the precious twenty-four hours in a day, a sunrise takes a good hour-and-a-half at least. The Farmer's Almanac claims that sunrise in Hillsdale was at 7:36 am, but that only indicates when the sun crossed the threshold of the horizon. It lit up the Great Lakes Plains well before then. On top of that, even from my excellent vantage, I had no change of a glimpse of the sun until it was well above the horizon, owing first to the hills and trees in the distance, and then to the vast swathe of altocumulus that looked very pretty but absorbed all the rays. And by the time the sun actually appeared above the clouds, it had lost nearly all its morning grandeur. It was just your run-of-the-mill Platonic form of the Good.

Sunsets, by comparison, are very short affairs, overflowing with gold and garnets, where the sun is extinguished in the space of a few short minutes. In this the sun bears a resemblance to many growing things - Empires, universities, people, trees, shops, anything you like, which are knit with the threads of fate so slowly, yet in their decay, crumble at a single fierce blow.

So was it worth it? Absolutely not. Maybe on a Carolina beach, with a driftwood fire, sizzling bacon, and a couple friends. But in Hillsdale, after an hour and a half the cold had made me so numb that all I could think about was wrapping up in my duvet.

Praise Song for Hillsdale Academy

This morning I attended the opening ceremony for Hillsdale Academy lower school, where I am apprenticing this term. The order is as follows:

Pledge of Allegiance
Singing of "Simple Gifts"
Welcome by the Headmaster
Poetry recitation by a student
Announcement of sporting achievements (if any)
Other announcements. Today the headmaster (Dr. Calvert), along with his head-of-years, handed out certificates to all those students who had perfect attendance for their first 100 days at the Academy.
Headmaster's exhortation and dismissal.

I was forcefully struck by the power of this daily rite, and especially by the constant inspirational public acknowledgment of student success. In England there is next to NO celebration of success. In (equivalent of) 8th grade, I wrote a poem which my English teacher very much liked, and considered entering into an upcoming anthology of student poetry. However, it was decided that my poem wouldn't be entered, since no other students in MY year had suitable work. My sixth form (last two years of high-school) didn't even have a graduation ceremony. The students at the Academy, for this reason among others, are unusually excellent as I have seen personally.

I would merely criticize the constant grading and exams. I wish rather that we would copy the grammar-school custom of holding competitions and offering prizes and glory throughout the school year, in all sorts of subjects. This generally encourages hard work even in that most difficult demographic, the bored boys - study the youth of Winston Churchill.