Sunday, August 9

sunrise


I love sunrises more than almost anything, I think.

They represent to me my time to be alone, time meant just for me. They represent discipline and solitude, which are both ideas that I value a little more than I care to admit, being the lighthearted and jovial spirit that I am.
So, I just love sunrises. 
I watched three of them on the beach this week.
This morning was the best one.
From the moment I stepped out in my jogging shoes and saw the colors and the clouds, I knew it would be exquisite. I had to jump a fence to get out to the beach; I wasn’t going to let anything stop me. After running a little along the shoreline and searching for my footprints on the way back, I plopped myself down in the sand, settled and ready for the sun to pop up over the water. The first thing I always notice about the sunrise is the way it sets a few selected clouds on fire before it even begins. The intense pink lining is just proof of what’s to come. The tide rolled on and the waves continued to break as I hummed the beatles’ “here comes the sun” (doo-de-doo-doo) to myself as intrigued joggers passed me by. I waited as the clouds began to lighten, as the sunbeams stretched across the sky like fingers, desperately reaching. There were now lines of pastel purple, pink, orange, yellow and blue all smooshed and faded together, but still no sun. “here comes the sun, little darlin’…” I didn’t really know the words. I sat and waited with my hands and feet 
planted in the sand.

Here comes the sun.

It began as a fiery pink spot. The spot widened some and rounded out. It peeked behind a small cloud at the horizon. Eventually, the half sun had engulfed the cloud and hot pink light totally surrounded it. As it continued to rise above the water, the top of the sun began to turn to fluorescent neon orange. What a tacky color that can be, I thought, when you see it in a box of markers.
But this was the absolute furthest thing from tacky.
I watched as the sun put on a brilliant show of colors and the sea reflected the entire thing distortedly – it reminded me of some kind of gorgeous abstract art. The sun was a full orb of fire now, beginning to change to a fierce yellow. The foam of the backlit waves was tinged pink when it splashed… this sun beautified everything it touched. As I watched it hovering, still close to the water, I noticed something painfully commonplace that today seemed to me completely revolutionary. The reflection of the sun on the water made a line. This beautiful golden watery line began right at the far-off horizon… and pointed straight to me.


I was a part of this beautiful unfolding. It was for me.
The green crashing waves were now iced with pure, piercing, colorless light as the sun continued its ascent into the sky. The ever-popping bubbles brought up on the shore from the surf looked instead like scintillating glitter left behind. When I’d had my fill of the big blue green reflective sea, and when the colors of the sky had all melted into light, I walked back over the dimpled and shadowed sand wondering if I would have to climb the fence the other way to get back into my condo. I looked up and saw a full moon opposite the scene I had just witnessed as the day’s young sun gently warmed my back, letting me know it was still there. I just shook my head.
…and I get to be a part of this beauty…

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