During my early-morning quiet time today, July 1, I heard the high-pitched sound of gulls, for the first time ever at my setting on the Allegheny River.

Birdsong symphonies greet each dawn here. I am as familiar with them as I am with a few works by Bach and Beethoven. So, when the gulls sounded their high notes about 6 a.m., I was startled out of my revelry. Feeling whimsical, I decided that they'd come from the Jersey shore to celebrate the Fourth of July in Oakmont.

Their distinctive calls transported me instantly to the beach, the real beach, the kind where ocean waves roll in regularly and the air is salt-scented.

Until I realize my dream of living on or near the sea, I'm quite content with living alongside this water, which looks like an expansive sheet of green glass this morning, mirroring mostly the leafy branches on the opposite shore. Traces of golden light glint here and there, suggesting that the faithful sun is rising somewhere beyond my view.

A slim yellow kayak glides by. In it sits a young man in a white life vest, leaning forward, then pulling his oar back with vigor. The entire rhythmic movement is silent, yet full of life. He and his craft are at one with the river. Its surface barely ripples when he gently dips the paddle into it.

In contrast, when cigar boats zoom by, engines roaring, they leave clouds of exhaust fumes in their wake, darkening my Eden for a spell. But, thankfully, such offensive vessels rarely violate dawn's tranquility. They tend to disturb the peace closer to sunset and mostly on weekends.

My quiet time usually concludes with an attempt at meditation. Soon I will close my eyes and try once again to silence my chattering mind. But, first, I allow myself one more sustained look out there at the water. A fat robin is perched on a bench close to river's edge, also gazing. On the ground nearby a couple of squirrels cavort, chasing each other on bright green grass.

Somehow their brown coats jerk me back to a memory of the first time I ever saw a river. It was the Monongahela, viewed when I was about 12 from a hillside near our home in South Oakland. Dark brown, it seemed as solid as chocolate, weighed down by the steel mill effluvia it carried for decades. It was easy to withdraw my gaze from it.

Not so now. I find myself walking over to my glass doors for peeks of flowing emerald all day long. What's happening now? Oh, there's a fish, flashing as it jumps out and back in, over and over -- in search of airborne breakfast perhaps.

It's time to conclude my dawn ritual. Reluctantly I return to the more mundane aspects of life, feeling grateful for such visual delights -- new every morning.