{"id":7089,"date":"2025-05-29T04:14:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-29T08:14:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/?p=7089"},"modified":"2025-08-18T03:21:36","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T07:21:36","slug":"leap-year-sunrise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/leap-year-sunrise\/","title":{"rendered":"Leap Year Sunrise"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LEAP YEAR SUNRISE
February 29, 2004      <\/em>                              

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wake up on the couch at Jake\u2019s house.
Larry David\u2019s Curb Your Enthusiasm<\/em> is on the TV.
He\u2019s the real<\/em>  George from Seinfeld<\/em>.
I want to sleep in my own bed.
I sneak out the door into the dark.
I climb into my Chevy Corsica and drive away.
I head up Route 60 until I see signs for I-79 North.
The roads are empty, the rest of the world is still sleeping.
For once I can hear my own thoughts, without interference.
I wish I was waking up in my childhood bedroom.
Maybe somebody is getting ready for church.
I\u2019m not part of a congregation in my college town.
A church is a gathering of imperfect people
which is sometimes good, sometimes bad
but today I crave a connection with the here and now.
Through ritual we chase stories of old\u2014
we dream up images into our visible world.
Would I earn more favor if I go see The Passion of the Christ<\/em>?
What if the real  <\/em>God was riding shotgun with me?
The maker, the spirit, creator of the sun.
I slide in a Five for Fighting CD and listen to
John Ondrasik count through ages in a century.
His gentle voice and the soothing piano keys
make me feel less alone, a little less weary.
I get lost in the morning light as I pass exit 73.
My demeanor has shifted from solitude\u2014
to being overcome with a desperate desire to be known.   
My passenger seat is empty, but I pretend the maker is with me.
I forget my deficiencies and imagine footprints in the sand.
Today is a new day. Maybe you know who I am\u2026The hope of a new sunrise breaks through\u2014
I blink my eyes and tears shine.
I drive north to Zelienople
and onward to Slippery Rock.
There\u2019s still time for me.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n




<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LEAP YEAR SUNRISEFebruary 29, 2004                                     I wake up on the couch at Jake\u2019s house.Larry David\u2019s Curb Your Enthusiasm is on the TV.He\u2019s the real…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7092,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7089","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"category-poetry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7089","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7089"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7089\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7195,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7089\/revisions\/7195"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7089"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7089"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/philgeist.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7089"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}