“Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world.”
I have always been drawn to nature; a comforting and quiet place. I grew up on Long Island, surrounded completely by water, spending most of my time either in it or near it, very early in the mornings or later in the evenings. At first I was more focused on the adventure at hand that usually included fishing.
We would head out early in the morning, way before sunrise, in the hopes of catching fish before dawn, when the world was still asleep, the morning much cooler and the fish more active. However, once the light of the sun reached us, we knew it wouldn’t be too much longer until we called it a day, gathering our gear together and the proof of our quest. And so, for that time, the sunrise was my stopwatch, an indicator it was time to go home and although I did always notice the first light hitting the sky, I never much watched or paid attention to the actual sun coming up. I was more focused on the task at hand; the ever slight and telltale movement of my pole.
I have always been a morning person and although that has slipped here and there over the years, I always retreat back to that time zone; it is my true zone. I go to bed when the light has left the sky completely and wake up when the first rays of the sun illuminate my window, wherever I am sleeping, no matter what happened the night before. My favorite catch phrase, “..burning daylight”.
It was not until I began walking in the mornings, as easy access to exercise that I could do wherever I was with just the cost of a good pair of sneakers, that my attention was caught by the sun. It was when I was living in Bay Shore, closest to the ocean, and would go walking early in the mornings, before work. It would still be dark as I headed out, and I would follow my familiar set course, in the stillness, in the quiet, when the world and most everyone in it had not yet started to stir from their nightly retreat and clutter the day with their noise. I would breathe in the salt air, the cool breeze and drink up this feeling of being the first to capture the morning. But on this one particular day, things changed considerably, when the morning captured me.
I was walking west, my head tilted a bit down in prayer, when my attention was pulled up and my head followed. I stopped. Before me, the morning sun was framed in the arches of the Robert Moses Causeway. It was perfectly centered, perfectly round and gold colored, and I could not take my eyes off of it. I began to walk slowly, mesmerized, watching as it rose out of that steel frame and into the open sky above, now brighter, lighter, more diffuse and warmer. I could see it, I could hear it, I could feel it, I could smell it.
From that day, as I went out on my daily walks, I would still enter a kind of “zen” state and sometimes not be aware of the dawn, however, this presence would somehow push into my being, grabbing my attention and then I would be watching, waiting. I could feel this quiet, this stillness, as the light first broke the horizon. I would catch myself holding my breath as did the dawn, and both would exhale; the dawn releasing the beautiful sun against the horizon, and me, releasing my well worn breath, streaming out from within. It was this connection, this anticipation and release of the birth of a new day that drew me always to the rise. And so there was no place on earth that I would ever go to, that I did not stand, becoming the stillness and rising with the sun, up, and into each day. I was filled.
In 1998, City of Angels was released in theaters. The movie takes place in the City of Angels, Los Angeles, and tells the story of Seth, an angel who gives up his immortality to become human for love and the painful road leading to his human life epiphone. I was so touched and stretched emotionally from every angle, held by this story. But one thing, one specific part of that movie resonated deeper and remained in me. And so on my next trip to LA, I awoke before dawn and made my way to the pacific coast. It was September, the morning cool, the waves breaking on the sand, the sky still dark. I began to walk towards the beach, very aware of the stillness, the quiet; there was no one else on the beach that I could see. However, the energy of others present was palpable and I was almost self conscious, trespassing there. I made it down to the water's edge and, for a few moments, I closed my eyes so that I could use every sense I knew of to experience what was about to happen or what I was hoping would happen.
The sea, crashing on the sand at my feet, was rushing towards the land and then retreating just as quickly, pulling itself back into the depths, and trying to pull me in, right along with it. But I stood fast, my feet sinking into the empty pockets of the sand floor it left behind. The breeze, riding on the wake of each wave, gently caressing me, tickling me and running off, leaving me, like a game in which I was supposed to follow. The spray from the force of both, wind and water, gently kissing me, leaving the taste of its saltiness on my face, lips, arms, the sound of the birds, softly speaking. I believe they too, were waiting and did not want to disturb the event about to unfold. The smell, when the coolness of the night is replaced by the warming of the day to come. It was almost time, and then I opened my eyes and waited.
The ink sky grew paler, I became focused on the horizon - it wouldn’t be too much longer now. And as the sky dropped its cloak off to the passing night, we held our breath and there, out at the water's edge, where the end of the world lay before us, the sun broke the morning. I smiled and watched, felt and then heard something. Something faint, something I was reaching up for, straining towards, but it was there. There, a simple sound, soft and high and in perfect accompaniment with the sun, as it continued to rise higher and higher, until it was complete and resting on the earth shelf, at the end of the vast sea stretching out before us.
I exhaled. Morning had broken.
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