A Welcomed Disruption

Although it was 3am a soft pale blue light filled up the small kneeling window next to our bed.  I wasn’t sure if it was a full moon but it was close enough.

I don’t always wake up having to go to the bathroom at night, sometimes I sleep through till morning.  And even when I do wake up, I always get out of bed and go downstairs to the bathroom reluctantly.

But it was early Wednesday morning, the day after we brought Zinnia home and I was glad to be awake at 3am.

I pulled on the sweater and leggings that were on the chair where I left them when I undressed for bed. I  could hear Bud snoring in his crate and I opened and closed the bedroom door quietly behind me so I wouldn’t wake Jon.

First I went to the bathroom,  then I let Fate out of her crate, put on my winter coat and gloves, opened Zinnia’s crate and put her collar and leash on her.  I didn’t turn on the outside light.  Although it was overcast, the almost full moon still lit up the sky and thin layer of snow on the ground.

Fate ran to the pasture gate and I walked Zinnia around praising her when she peed.

Then I lingered.  I looked at the trees and bushes in the yard flattened into silhouettes by the moonlight.  The moon was small and high over the hill across the now empty and quiet Route 22,  which shone white under the cast of the bluish-yellow night sky.

My world, that I know so well in the daytime,  takes on another reality at night. And each night it’s different from the last.

When I have a puppy to get up for in the night and take outside, I get to watch the moon wax and wain, track its position in the sky, notice how the dark changes and look for the constellations I’m familiar with.

As much as I love being outside early in the night, without a reason like taking a puppy out to pee, I only do it a few times a year, when something inside me insists on it.

I first did it for Fate, then Gus now Zinnia.

Having a puppy again is as much a joy as it is a disruption.  And under most circumstances, having to get up in the middle of the night would be a chore and nuisance.  But I find that I automatically wake up when we have a puppy who needs to go out to pee in the night, and it is one of the disruptions that I delight in.