It's 5:42 in the morning and I've got the curtains to my big sliding balcony doors open, because a) it's not warm enough to warrant blocking the sun and b) I love the sight of cities before dawn. Why? Because it's different, I suppose, different from whatever the city usually is when the full light of the sun shines on it. You wake up, look outside, and everything is washed over in these lovely shades of blue with bright needling orange pinpoints where the streetlights are on. No cars, if you get up early enough; no smoke, no fire. Birdsong (or maybe just bird gossiping, it's not like anyone knows for sure) drowns out most everything. It's like a watercolour with a soundtrack. It could be anywhere; and for a girl who lives in a city reeking of pollution, poverty, and bad taste, anywhere is better than here.
It's lightening up. One by one the streetlights die, and the horizon comes into view. I'm always amazed at how fast the illusion packs up and leaves. How my lovely little watercolour takes about fifteen minutes to bleed out into the same dull urban landscape you would find from any other vantage point in this godforsaken city. Maybe I like the pre-dawn hours because they look like pictures I've seen of the Arctic Circle's eternal dusk, which goes back to the whole "this could be everywhere" deal that keeps this particular time period an abiding draw for me.
Blue like a crayon sketch, a dye factory accident, an entire ocean stopped up in a bottle. Blue like a drop-cut sapphire, a field of cornflowers, a blueberry quietly crushed into the tablecloth. Blue like a flag with a yellow cross in--
-slaps knee- Sweden. That's the place. Reminds me of Sweden. You know... cobalt skies, snow. Downhill skiers. Lutefisk.
But how can you be reminded of somewhere you've never been?
~Mnemosyne
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