Watching a beautiful sunrise through a filthy windshield

Yesterday was the warmest January day on record in Austria, ever, and the records go back nearly 300 years. Nearly 70 fahrenheit. Today will be nearly as warm. Despite this fact, I just now discovered, the juice I bought to drink at lunch is frozen completely solid in its little carton. However, the warm weather has brought beautiful blue springtime skies and magnificent sunrises.

Yesterday was best of all – the moon still nearly full behind me – and it was such a fantastic one this time, low and big and golden on the horizon – the skies just turning blue and the sun rising over the hills in front of me, turning the last clouds pink and purple before they dissolved. Lower down, the forest along the river still black and bare, a dense black tangled creepy mass of huge trees, with that sunrise climbing out of it. And in front of the woods, dark brown plowed fields, with the first optimistic shoots of grass and grain and the first flowers giving them a green cast. Sprouts that will be in for a big surprise when the weather turns freezing again in February.

A temporary spring. All of it viewed through a windshield caked thickly with winter road grime, salt and dirt and bird shit. And my perception moving back and forth between them – sunrise, windshield, moon, windshield, spring field, windshield, sunrise, windshield, scary forest.

3 responses to “Watching a beautiful sunrise through a filthy windshield

  1. 70 fahrenheit. What

  2. Mig

    about 20 or 21. it got up to 19 in Austria.

  3. Bauke

    Aren’t I lucky. Yesterday I was sitting outside drinking coffee after lunch and I had to take of my sweater. I was sitting in a T-shirt, outside, in Januari…. 23 C! Wheeehoo! I (Heart) Portugal!