The sun rises 365 times a year. Many of those times are spent in deep sleep, covered by clouds or buildings and trees blocking the sun and its framing colors.
Even when it isn’t seen, the sun rises expectedly every morning so that when the rest of the world wakes, everything is perfectly dusted with light. Yet, the most beautiful part is when everyone else misses it.
Sunsets are seen frequently by so many people because the world is still awake and running when they occur. But only the attentive people and ones who know how to find the beauty of a sunrise will catch one.
5:45 a.m. The alarm bounces on the walls in a small condo bedroom fitting a family of four. Silent movements line the hall to the living room, where a window overlooks the awakening ocean. The sky is a painting of Athena’s, and it reflects along the slightly rustled ocean. The sound of collapsing waves amongst the breeze sings a song only the most wonderful of moments can imitate. It calls for whoever is around to come closer to the forgotten beauty of the ocean and the sky.
The silent footsteps leave the condo toward the elevators and the elegance and peace beyond. Few other footsteps crunch through the patchy, sand-covered grass in the early hour when all is quiet.
The footsteps stop at a point just before the soft sand fades into the matted and wet. The cold sand is covered with a towel for comfort, and a book is set to one side with a phone set on top.
Before the mind wanders, it thinks. Not about all that is happening, has happened, and will happen, but about the current state of the world and simple, accompanying thoughts. There’s an aroma of wet salt, so much that it reaches beyond scent so that it can be felt along any available surface. The waves have a melodic pattern that sings back to the sound of the quiet wind. The sky is a piece that not even Picasso or Da Vinci could replicate. The colors complement the unique blue of the water so well that it creates a line of satisfaction along the horizon. It seems that with each blink the colors change, but in a way that isn’t noticeable until it’s gone. The seagulls subtly surround the area, searching for unbothered crabs dug into the sand and flying above to find fish jumping through the fragmented waves. Before the mind can even move to the next thought, the view and area catch it again with the stunning nature it beholds. A perfectly shaped seashell or a break in the water that quite possibly could be a sea creature of some sort. The book is forgotten, and only a minute is spared to the phone for the sole purpose of reminding the value of that time. The mind is kept from any anxiety, worry, and outside thoughts. It is left with only the simplest and purest thoughts that are held in the back of the mind at most times.
So many miss it from sleep, work, or technology. Even the ones who are prepared to admire it may truly miss it. Similarly, some miss it from admiring it too frequently as well because the rareness and meaning have then gone. As schools are beginning, work strives on, late nights are filled with work and people, and runs of sunny clear skies are replaced with runs of snow-threatening clouds, the sunrises are stuck behind the trees and sleep, and only glances are caught at it in busy times.
Whenever I see that quiet, magnificent sunrise again, I won’t miss it for anything else, but until then, I will take the lesson it taught me through the rest of my life.
