Hot tub Astronomy
Daystar Day in Laguna Beach California
"4:58 A.M.!" The vibrant green numbers on the small electric clock announced silently from my dresser. My sleep heavy eyelids closed again to let the significance of the clock's message penetrate my brain.
Ah yes, now I remember. Today is Daystar Day, March 20th the first day of Spring and I am supposed to get up now, in the dark, to feel this Spring morning arrive.
I had been persuaded to do so by late night T.V. astronomer, Jack Horkheimer, known as the Star Hustler. His talking antics and exhuberant style, always talking down to children and adults alike had captured my attention and convinced me to get up before dawn and experience the first rays of our own star, the sun, what he called Daystar Day.
Last night his flowery prose had caught me in a romantic moment or whatever, and I had set my mind to wake up for the event.
Slipping out of bed I walked barefooted through the sliding door to the Hot tub deck. Alone in the early morning darkness I found myself completely engulfed by a dense mist of heavy gray air. About 25 feet below the deck little ruffles of white foam were barely discernable where the Pacific Ocean with muted fog softened tones toyed with pebbles on the sand. It was high tide but there was no surf, no sky and certainly no wind. Three silent Gulls swept past like flying ghosts on graceful unmoving outstretched wings and disappeared into the gray. I looked up and all around: no moon, no stars. Part of a mostly forgotten childhood poem popped into my mind; "No sun, no moon, no morn, no noon...November" The words of the Thomas Hood poem about November in London are perfectly fitting to a June morning in my little coastal village of Laguna Beach. Yes indeed this was a typical June morning, often refered to as June gloom by the natives. It was early this year.
Two closeby street lights and three neighboring porch lights broke through with dull orange glows. Not a single window was lit. If others had risen to observe Daystar Day, they did it as I did; alone in a cocoon of imperseptibly lightening gray.
This is a job for the hot tub, I told myself as I went in for a bathing suit. On my way back out I passed by the bed where my husband, Bob slept soundly under a comforter. I paused to decide if he would prefer Daystar Day or sleep. Sleep won. The newspaper arrived at the door with a thump, so I retrieved it. Two joggers padded past without a nod. Dog barks followed them one after the other like echos down the street.
Back on the deck I slid into the hot tub. The rising steam from the jaccuzi forced its way into the already moisture saturated air. I sat surrunded by a slow heavy fog that seemed to sit so firmly on the ocean as to discourage the very waves from forming.
A motorcycle fired up somewhere with a muffled roar and faded into the distance. A pale line of birds occupying a sagging telephone wire scolded the intruder with pleasant Mockingbird voices. Two crows perched on top of a nearby boat mast did a much better job of lambasting the long gone cyclist.
I peered past them searching for a glimpse of sky. Nothing just a paler shade of gray. When had the street lights gone out? Porch lights were still on but no longer orange. A dog woofed at two walking gulls, drawing my attention to the slowly expanding beach. An eager German shepard danced a dainty line of paw prints across the still virgin sand, while his master left a firm set of larger ones
several yards behind. Four large grey pelican silhouettes bobbed close to shore, fishing for their cold slippery breakfasts. They floated patiently and watched as a young man in a wet suit carried a surf board into their watery domain. But why? There was no surf. Absolutely none! Then I saw him pick up a fishing pole and attach it to the board with a stretchy cord. As I watched, he walked out leisurely into the mist-swirled water. I savored the warmth of the hot tub and remembered the shock of that cold sea water as it enters the edges of the wetsuit and startles the body in various places before slowly warming. The boy lay belly down on the board and glided himself past the large birds with smooth long arm strokes, the fishing pole preceeding him like the prow of a great ship. He disappeared into the haze quickly and the birds resumed their lazy hunt, dipping the heavy beaks gently into the home of the unsuspecting fish, then lifting high to swallow..
The sky had lightened, but barely, there was still no horizon, just a gradual change of gray tones from shore to sky. The view broadened to include a couple of anchored boats, occupants probably still rocked to sleep by the calm rolling water.
The sound of metal on metal drew my attention to the hillside on the north, across the small boats that had been left strewn on the empty lot waiting for summer's rush. At the street a couple unloaded scuba gear with faint clanking.
Something almost invisible moved close by. Only inches away an exceptionally tiny caterpiller, perfectly matched to the faded redwood around the tub, took infinitesimal steps toward what? His search for breakfast? Or had he, like I, awakened to observe the sunrise on the first day of Spring. For surely the sun is his alarm clock, calling him awake along with the green buds everywhere. If it was food he was after he had a long way to go. I observed him for a few seconds. If he was after something grander like Daystar Day, we were both out of luck.
The grander things remained hidden behind the dark morning mist. I knew that somewhere out there the sun had already out-shined the stars, and was working on the planets. I knew that the low eastern sun was capable of casting a warm light on the steep granite cliffs of Catalina Island resting in the west. But this day this Daystar Day was not that kind of day. Although it had grown light enough to see the newspaper. I held it out over the side of the tub to read it.
"More trouble in the middle east." I put the paper down, I would think about that stuff some other time. June weather and all, it was still too nice on the first day of Spring to ponder world problems.
A speed boat zoomed past, a fishing boat with a dozen or so barely visible fisher- persons posed with poles around the deck rails. Screaming sea gulls swept back and forth stealing bait. On shore, four more scuba divers arrived and disappeared almost effortlessly. A breeze came up. that proved that the sun was out there someplace. The surf rose and a line of baby waves crashed on shore wiping out the newly laid foot prints. The little caterpiller made it into the yard with the green buds.
An astronomical event had occured. Spring had arrived. The Vernal Equinox. Just not with a great blast of sunshine declaring supremacy over the moon and the stars of the night. Spring had ushered herself in simply and gently with layers of silken veils lifted one at a time until a pale sun appeared and Spring was exposed in all her glory.
I felt happy to have gotten up for the unveiling. Thank you Mr.Star Hustler!
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Thank you, Beverly
