Most every day, when I first wake up, I’ll reach out to stroke my dog’s back. Very often, she is already sitting up in the king-sized bed where we sleep, waiting for me to show signs that I’ve joined her in being awake.

She’ll accept my touch and curl up under my arm while I decide to leave the warmth of the quilt. She knows the routine, that my full readiness to embrace the day might take a few minutes.

I’ll try to guess what time it is by the light that is entering the room through the narrow space between the heavy curtains. I’ll give myself permission to linger.

I’ll look past the foot of the bed and take note of whether I closed my closet door last night. It always seems to be darker in my closet even if the room is dark.

I understand that it’s farther away from the sliver of light that enters the room from the outside through the window, but this blackness feels kind of magical.

I guess I’ve always been fascinated by shadow and light.

I’ll pull on sweats and attempt to do some stretches in my living room. (True to her nature, India seems to enjoy Downward Dog). I’ll feed India and we’ll take our morning walk. When we get back, I’ll put the kettle on for tea.

The other morning, while my chai was steeping, I stepped out onto my back deck. I saw the sun, low in the eastern sky, sending out subdued but golden rays of light into my neighborhood — over the telephone wires, above Ravenswood’s red brick three-story buildings built almost a century ago. The light, kind of smoky in appearance, reached into the alleys along a small section of commuter train tracks in an easy, what-you-see-is what-you-get, way.

God, it was beautiful!  It was beautiful to me.

I thought about Claude Monet attempting to capture the exquisiteness of light in his series paintings, like “Stacks of Wheat” or “Charing Cross Bridge.”  He’d paint the same scene at different times of day.  I think he once said that “light” was the subject of any painting.

I decided to snap photos from my back deck at different times of day. What would I discover?

The tops of garages, the color of the sky, the presence or absence of clouds, signs of daily activity, like neighbors heading to work, or school, or the store. All these things, that were simply part of daily life, were beautiful to me.

Each time in the course of the day, when I gazed at my surroundings, I’d marvel at how the same shapes and objects were rendered new somehow because of the light that illuminated them — and maybe because of my own light; how open I was to seeing them at a precise moment.

When I bubbled about my photo project, a friend, with a background in photography, told me about Chiaroscuro, how many techniques are used in different art forms to create the appearance of volume by using light and shadow.

This was interesting but didn’t explain my state of awe. My decision, and I do think this is both an understanding and decision I reached, to find beauty in shadow and light, only began with an appreciation for contrast. Now, it seems to be an aspect of acceptance.

I have grown to believe that my darkest days — periods of loneliness, depression, and even physical limitation like how I couldn’t walk for weeks following a car accident — fueled my appreciation for periods of elation or contentment.

I have felt inexplicably buoyant over slight synchronicities like the discovery of a new friend sharing my birthday. Similarly, I have felt content beyond any sort of rationale by walking around a neighborhood park with my dog just after sunrise, witnessing no one else walking along the path, drawn to the thought that the entire world was just for us.

Shadow and light is not just about contrast in an aesthetic sense. For me, it’s about my soul’s journey. Seeing the shadow and light of the physical world only serves to bring me inward.

Contrast serves as a reference point and can be helpful in many exercises of appreciation. It seems natural to appreciate some things simply because they’re not other things.

But I also have to look at my own light and shadows. I have impulses to be generous and helpful but also tendencies to be impatient and self-centered. Accepting and owning the full spectrum of experiences and feelings is rich. I am all these things. Life is every contrasting element and everything in between.

The qualities of shadow and light don’t belong to an object. These qualities belong to the moment and my ability to perceive and appreciate what I am experiencing NOW.

Finding beauty, finding blessings, in both shadow and light is no small thing.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!