Beginnings, Sunrises, and Magic

I’m a fan of beginnings. The beginning of a new month, and those early glimpses of the next season. The first night of late summer that’s chilly enough to pull on a sweatshirt. 

I love opening the cover of a new book; I’ll check the publishing date and read the dedication before turning to page one. The excitement that comes with the beginning of a new adventure. And the first sips of a cup of coffee. 

Maybe it’s one of the simplest things, but I especially enjoy the beginning of a new day.

I used to think there wasn’t much difference between a sunrise and a sunset. It’s true that the sky puts on quite a show regardless of whether it’s morning or evening. But the more of both I’ve seen, the more I’ve noticed a subtle magic that only happens in the morning.

In the early morning before the sun, even the birds are still quiet. Sometimes I like being up to hear all the silence, but usually I like to begin my day when the birds are already singing. I don’t turn on music, the TV, or check my phone.  When I ask my dog if he’s hungry for his breakfast, I even speak in a whisper. For the beginning of my mornings, I’m quiet and I just listen.

The birds chirp as the sun rises higher in the sky. If you’re lucky, that’s all you hear for while. Maybe there’s the occasional steady footfalls of a morning runner and the jingle of dog tags on collars during a morning walk. Then a few car doors slam, engines igniting as the early commuters start their drives to the office.

It’s not long after that the subtle symphony of the morning crescendos into the noise of the day. When the world is fully awake, there are too many sounds all at once. You can no longer hear each separate melody of all the different songs beginning. But that’s okay, because the quiet happens every morning. You just have to be up early enough to listen for it.

Even if you start your day before the sunrise, the sunrise itself is still generally considered as the beginning of the day. Those predawn hours are for getting a head start on the day. For those getting after it before the day begins. The early mornings, before the sun rises, is this incredible window of time that only seems to exist for that day’s earliest risers.

I don’t need to see the sky fade from that predawn purple to a lighter hazy pink at the horizon. Although, I do love when I catch that part of the morning. Being able to see the night relent and give way to the day is witnessing magic. As much as I love watching the sunrise, I’m okay with missing it some mornings too. As long as I’m still up early enough to listen to the sounds of the world slowly waking up.

I’m not sure exactly how long it’s been that I’ve believed that every morning has magic in it. I know it wasn’t always. It’s a feeling that happened slowly around the time my teens gave way to my twenties. What I do know for sure is that it happened after morning amazed me for the very first time.

Several years ago, I waited all night for a morning I didn’t think would ever come. My world had shattered only hours before, and I didn’t know how the world could keep turning. But it did. And after spending the entire night crying and staring out the window, slivers of grey sky broke through the darkness. The birds broke the silence, and slowly the sunrise happened.

I watched every moment of the sunrise that day, so sure that it couldn’t be real. It was the first morning I ever remember listening for the sounds of the world waking up. I was so sure that I wouldn’t hear them, but I did. That morning didn’t feel like magic to me. What that morning was though, was amazing. I remember feeling stunned by the sun’s resilience; that it would still rise and begin a new day.

For a few years after that night, I didn’t sleep much. And for a while I only thought of the morning as amazing, not magic. Each sleepless night I would lie there, wondering if morning would come, and it always did. Even when I felt like it couldn’t possibly happen, the world kept turning, the sun kept rising, and eventually my world starting turning again too. And somewhere in there, I started to feel magic.

These days, the quiet of the morning is my favorite time of day. I don’t have to be up for the sunrise, but I do always have to be up early enough to hear the world wake up. I’m actually quite grumpy the few times a year I sleep in and miss the magic of the morning.