If you happen to be awake when the dawn breaks, the sky looks like it is breathing. You are motionless, perhaps, in bed. On your back is best. And your stillness is vertigo and hallucination to your eyes because the sky is alive and moving in its dome without restraint, turning in a color wheel, getting bigger and bigger – like an open mouth full of the color blue. It’s the wildest thing, and it’s slow like molasses. I do it almost every morning. I like early.
But the game gets harder as the days get longer. We’re well past the solstice now. And my early-bird must ride earlier and earlier to watch these ombre lungs pump. It becomes more and more of a treat. More and more of a rarity. Until, by summer, to catch the sun when it murmurs into gold is nothing short of scandalous to watch. Party on.
It’s not spring yet. I don’t need to spend too much time working weather angles into my articles to create harmony and relevancy and oneness. February is just no man’s land. And island. Or some other metaphor that imparts the hollow spaces between changing seasons and days of designated importance.
But this day in February can be grounded. This day, February 7th, can be the ground for a launch. Today:
The University of Louisville kicks off the spring line up for the Axton Reading Series, starting with novelist Hannah Tinti tonight, in the Bingham Poetry Room at 7:30pm.
Featuring distinguished writers of all genres from across the nation, the English department’s creative writing program hosts the Axton Reading Series during both fall and spring semesters free for both students and cityfolk. Tonight’s guest, Hannah Tinti, is an acclaimed novelist based in New York City. The author of the award-winning first novel, The Good Thief, Tinti’s work has also appeared in numerous magazines and was featured in the anthology The Best American Mystery Stories 2003. In addition to writing, Tinti is also the co-founder and current editor-in-chief of the publication One Story magazine.
Book junkies can catch Tinti’s reading tonight in the Ekstrom Library.
And that is a part of today, February 7th. February 7th – a day in non-spring, the same day when I watched another sunrise and enjoyed it, up and awake just a hair’s breadth earlier to see how a shade of blue can melt into another. Like breathing. And then it was day, and I launched into it.
The University of Louisville’s Ekstrom Library is located at 2301 South Third Street.
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