Driving away from the house, at 6:30 a.m., practically dark outside, and my parents had no idea. Yep, my uncle had officially gone insane.
A cold chill ran up the sheets of my bed  as I woke to the creaking sound of my brother opening the bedroom door. I sat up immediately, being blinded by the bright morning sun rise. It was 6:00 a.m. on an August day in Cohasset. I was staying a night at my cousins’ house with my family. However, this was no normal day at my cousins’ house, because they were no normal family.
My Uncle Jack’s family lived in a different way than most people, a way that I admired but I had never thought twice about. They lived a very natural life. Every morning they’d wake up to the sound of the roosters crow, collect the chickens eggs, make their soaps and candles,  fix up the amazingly large garden and collect tons of fresh vegetables for that night’s dinner. It was a way of living that most people didn’t understand. I didn’t quite understand it either.  Why would anyone waste their time making soaps and candles? Why would anyone want to wake up at 6 a.m. every morning?! These were all thoughts that raced through my mind as I went to bed the night before. For some reason I just couldn’t grasp an understanding of it. So why was I getting up so early on a vacation day? Well that’s the thing, the night before my uncle Jack had explained to my brother and I that at 6:00 his rooster Rudy would wake up the family to begin the days work. He told us that he would bring my brother and I on a special adventure. Well, he sure was right, because at 6:30 exactly, Rudy cocadoodledooed me right out of bed.
But as I first opened my eyes, the morning sunrise light glowed through my open window. I had never experienced a sunrise, let alone something so beautiful. The sun rose perfectly over the water and right through my window, where the sounds of the waves crashed across the rocks. I took it in for a second, the sound of the waves, the way the sun hit my face perfectly, and even the sound of Rudy the rooster waking me up in such a natural way. It was unlike anything I had ever seen at home. There was something about it that knocked waking up to an alarm clock right out of the park. There was something about it that made me realize some things that morning that I hadn’t ever thought about before.
But as I closed my eyes and enjoyed the relaxing moment, I was interrupted by the sound of my brother’s whisper.
“ Grace, c’mon we have to go or we might miss the surprise!”
I got up quickly and threw on my big Smith School sweatshirt. Wishing I could savor the moment one last second, I threw on my sneakers and tip toed after him. There stood my Uncle Jack at the bottom of the stairs waiting calmly for us.
“Good morning guys, are you ready to head out?!”
I smiled and followed him down the steps. What in the world could we be doing at 6:30 in the morning?! As we got down to the kitchen he grabbed three glasses and waved us over.
“Before we leave, we need to get some things out of the way.” he said as he glanced back at us. “First, Grace I need you to go to the chicken coop and collect the eggs. There should be about 3 there. And Quinn, I need you to help me make the lemon juice.”
I glanced at the chicken coop through the window. How do you collect eggs from a chicken coop? Do chickens peck?! Nervously, I went outside toward the chicken coop. I unlatched the coop carefully and opened the door, afraid a chicken might pop out at me. I reached in anxiously and grabbed as many eggs as I could get. I could feel the warmth of the coop around my hands. All the chickens huddled in a corner supplying heat to each other. I held the still warm eggs close to me, amazed at such a thing and walked as slowly and as quietly as I could back to the kitchen. I handed the three warm eggs to my uncle and in exchange he handed me my glass of freshly squeezed lemon juice. Lemon juice? Why lemon juice? I could already feel the burning of the lemon on my throat before I even took a sip, but I asked no questions. I lifted the glass to my lips and began to chug it down. It immediately exploded in my mouth with a sour, strong taste. My first instinct was to spit it out but I gulped it all down, every last drop of it.
To be honest, I hadn’t been expecting much from this planned surprise that my brother and I were going on. So when my uncle lead us over the gravel driveway towards his black jeep, I was quite anxious.
So, when you are driving away from the house, at 6:30 in the morning, practically dark outside, in a place you are not familiar with, and your parents don’t even know, maybe you can understand why I was a little nervous. However, there was no backing down now, I had somehow gotten myself up at 6 and I was planning on keeping it that way. So I hopped in the jeep and didn’t think twice about it.
We drove along the coast for a while. It might have been 15 full minutes before I could hear my uncle’s voice again, directing us outside the car. And thats when I saw the surprise. It was a magnificent surprise, an exciting beautiful, just plainly awesome surprise. It was a surprise that most people may have just thought was boring, or not a surprise at all. But it sure was a surprise to me, one of the best surprises I could ask for.
It was a landscape of shimmering blue reflections. It was miles and miles of the world’s greatest wonder. Home to billions of creatures. It was the ocean. Just the ocean. And a boat. A small boat.
But as I walked along the dock and dipped my feet into the cool blue sea it made me wonder, and question, and think. I looked deep inside the majestic ocean for answers. And there were answers, tons of them. There were so many answers to so many questions; questions I had never thought about. It was like a whole other world down here, a world I wanted to be a part of. I was right, this was a different way of living, but I think I started to understand it.
We stepped inside the small boat, pushed off the dock, and then the morning was in our hands.  And that’s when the adventure really started. But that’s a whole other story.
With the morning sunrise ahead of us and the world behind us, we set off into the ocean, all three of us. And it was then that I finally understood. I understood it, all of it. I understood the joy that this way of life brought him. I totally saw how worth it it was to wake up at 6 a.m. And I saw how worth it it was to spend hours upon hours and days upon days to create a garden that grew that night’s dinner. I even understood the thought of spending even more time and effort creating soap and candles, rather than just buying them. It all made sense. I began to feel a sense of protection and connection. I felt like I was part of something, something that many people just overlooked. I had felt what he felt every morning, like nature was apart of me. I felt something I had never felt before, a connection to nature that had never been so real. From that day forward I always knew that I wanted to live that life. I made an extra effort to appreciate nature more, and to treat it in a more valuable way. I began to live life with a completely new perspective; always on the edge, living in the present. It was a small experience, but it impacted the way I viewed the world in such a greater way.