4.15 a.m.

The room is only just not dark. Through the open window, the Hudson Valley sighs, a long drawn-out exhale that accompanies a single drift of rain. (Rain, entering its sixteenth straight day.)

Another long drawn-out exhale beside me, and my daughter Lydia stirs in her sleep. In the near-dark I can just see the long ripples of her hair against the lighter sheet. One breath of her Lydia mandarin-cinnamon smell drifts past me.

Somewhere not too far away, late-home revelers laugh and call out. The sound echoes through the neighborhood and is cut off as they remember that their neighbors sleep. A single car growls uphill.

I rise and go to the window, moving the lace curtains aside to let the warm-cool damp breeze into my face. Through the apple tree's ghostly branches, I know the Palisades can be seen during the day but it's dark and misty still.

4.29 a.m. The dawn chorus begins. One, two, three separate birds call out to their mates, and morning is officially underway: June 21, 2009.