And 2022 Begins…

It’s a ritual I have grown to enjoy in recent years…going up on my roof and watching some combination of the sun or moon rising or setting on New Year’s Eve and again on New Year’s Day. Often I am drinking a cup of tea as I watch and reflect.

On December 31, 2021, I watched the sun set…on a particularly challenging year…

That night from the roof, I watched fireworks, as I have for many years now. There were a lot this year, far more than last year, when we had a 10 p.m. Covid curfew and stricter gathering restrictions. This year the curfew was 1 a.m.

Having gone to bed late, I set my alarm to make sure that I woke up to catch sunrise New Year’s morning. I made a cup of tea and climbed the stairs to the roof, in search of the sun. Instead I found the thinnest of crescent moons under a low bank of red clouds! It was an immense and beautiful surprise and felt like such a gift!

I watched as the sky lightened and the moon faded…a fainter and fainter line of light, which I could only see because I knew it was there and I knew where to look…

Eventually the moon disappeared from sight and the sun came up from over the hill…shining through an ackee tree…

I’ve been thinking a lot about things we might see, if we knew they were there and knew where to look. Like the doves sitting in that ackee tree, in the picture above…

Happy New Year!

Sunrise Surprise!

Any morning that I head to the roof  to watch the sun rise, I am never quite sure what I will see.  Even as I climb the spiral staircase, navigating the narrow space left by the recently installed guttering, I am uncertain what will greet me. Like the morning I took this series of photos…a chilly, overcast morning. Grey was the main colour, as I sat and drank my tea. Little did I know the drama that was about to unfold!

A heavy bank of clouds hung low in the eastern sky, over a bowl where two hills overlapped. As the sunlight began to shine up from behind the hills, a pink pattern started to appear on the clouds.

I  realised that nature was deciding to dance this morning and I was a lucky witness! Brighter pink and over a larger area of cloud…

And this was the finale! The sky on fire…transformed…

Tea forgotten; no journaling done. I watched, transfixed. Bathed in this sunrise surprise….

 

“Nuh Wey Nuh Betta Dan Yard”: Weekly Photo Challenge – Place In The World

“Where do you belong? In the hustle and bustle of a big city or amongst friendly faces in a small town? For this week’s challenge, show us your place in the world….Where’s your safe space? Where do you go when you need to feel inspired or cheered up?”

Yard is where I belong….Jamaica…right here…home.

Looking north…

…south…

…east…

…west…

Weekly Photo Challenge – Place in the World

 

 

Rainbow: Weekly Photo Challenge – Smile

“This week, show us a smile (yours or someone else’s), make us smile, or both. Share a photo of something that has brought a moment of joy into your life recently, or focus on the outcome of that joy.”

Wordsworth wrote, “My heart leaps up when I behold/ A rainbow in the sky”. And rainbows reliably evoke a moment of joy in me, bring a smile to my face. One morning earlier this year, I saw a double rainbow when I was up on my roof. Bliss! Far…

…or near….

Rainbow: Weekly Photo Challenge – Smile

Rooftop: Weekly Photo Challenge – Favourite Place

“This week, share an image of your happy place, a secret spot you love, or a faraway location you return to again and again.”

My rooftop has featured in a number of my Weekly Photo Challenge posts. It’s really a favourite place of mine. A large, flat, rather unimpressive concrete slab roof…

 

with a gravelly surface. But I love it for the view it provides of the world around me. At sunrise, when the chilly morning air provides a wonderful contrast to the hot tea I often drink there.

At sunset, in those serene, sometimes spectacular moments which signal the coming end to the day, whatever the day was like. In the dead of night, when the moon or a planet or a constellation of stars beckons and I marvel at how large “out there” is.  My rooftop….a nearby location I return to again and again….

Weekly Photo Challenge – Favorite Place