Winter Sunrises
Darker shorter days - inclement weather - winter is not necessarily the easiest season to love. But, like a somewhat prickly and perhaps aloof individual whose value as a friend will reward your efforts to get past the exterior persona, Winter has much to share when you treat her as a friend.
One such revealed treasure is the accessible sunrise. As a non-early bird, winter offers the only likely opportunity in the year for me to be awake to watch the sunrise on an ordinary day.
We had storms forecast earlier in the month and when I drew the curtains, it seemed like the adage was true - red sky at morning, sailors’ warning. The sky was absolutely on fire and even though it was a work day, I grabbed my camera, threw on a coat and ran down to the beach in hopes of catching some of the beauty.
The next day, I was slightly better prepared and when I saw colours in the sky again, I didn’t even spend the half minute I wasted the previous day on dithering about whether I had time or not. I just went.
This time, I determined to stay to watch the magical moment of sunrise itself.
The trails from jets passing high made comets above the clouds. To my left further up the shingle bank a couple stood close together as they watched the horizon intently. Below me another lone photographer stood, experiencing the sky through his lens as well as through his eyes, as do I. We exchanged nods, acknowledging a certain unity - not gathered together, but sharing a purpose, an event. Similar in feeling to the connection you can share with fellow audience members at a musical event of greatness, a moment of wonder that seems to weave strands between you, uniting you into something sublime. We were not happenstance passersby that morning. We were all there of intent and forethought, to watch that grand spectacle unfold before us, to experience something that despite its daily occurrence, despite its happening being so integral to our human experience that mostly we take it for granted, today was special. Today we were marking the miracle of our planet and its fine balance in the universe, the fascination that something so ubiquitous, dictated by physical laws and predictable to the minute, can be so unpredictably and astonishingly splendid, so un-quantifiably spectacular.
A passing ship on the horizon covered the crucial place for a few moments and as it passed, seemed to trail the rising sun in its wake, as if drawing it from the water.
I nodded to my fellow appreciators and went back home to get ready for work. Just another day. But throughout I kept remembering that sunrise experience, those moments of sublime transcendence. There was nothing ordinary in the gift of those stunning winter sunrises.
