This time of year, getting to work at 6am means getting to work after the sun has risen. I miss the predawn haze over the waterway west of Bel Marin Keys, and the sunrises that make getting up in the dark worth it.

But now I arrive to find wide ribbons of water in a satin nickel finish below my second-story window. Yesterday, there was a flock of pelicans compulsively plunging their bills into the pond and swallowing the dark fish they found. The eucalyptus trees stand on the horizon and also lie in a blurred mirror in the water.

The surface sparkles where the river's current enters the pond. Little dances of light because of something happening underneath.