Describing Dawn

An exercise in irrelevance.

It’s the early morning. So early, it’s dark.

Dark early.

And I’ve only slept 4.5 hours.

Which isn’t unusual, as I’m simply not very good at it.

Sleeping, that is.

I am mostly a night owl, becoming increasingly nocturnal with age, but I love the wee morning hours and feel fortunate whenever I wake to witness them.

There is something specific about -time- when light has yet to emerge.

A unique suspension.

The quiet it holds.

A tangible liminality.

I think about writing.

The art of it.

I contemplate how I would describe the essence of the Dawn.

It’s energy and image, in words.

Translating the “sense” of something in a perfectly described form.

A described form that inspires and engages.

Engages and then holds captive.

Leaving the listener, a reader, wanting more.

Good writing is how to do that, well.

Various thoughts run along my mind, and I look outside over my garden.

When darkness envelops the green hues of nature, the colors look blue.
Gray blue. Silver Blue.

Darker shadows of blue-black, cast against the back fence.

My little grapefruit tree takes on a strange, distorted shape.

I think about perception.

How light (or the lack thereof) changes how we perceive things. Quite literally.

But which side of perception is the correct one?

Are the leaves blue or are they green?

Neither.

I live in the deep South, where the humidity creates a particular kind of morning moisture. Moisture that clings heavily along windows.

I think of these bits of moisture as lingerings—like offerings from the Moon.

I smile because I love the Moon.

A flash of my grandmother and the scent of her home pops into my senses.

I pause. And take a deep breath in.

I think of the sounds and smells of brewing coffee from a dark kitchen.

I think of slippers. God, I love a good slipper, yet haven’t owned a pair in years. Why?

I see my grandmother smile.

The morning of Dawn holds a very unique energy.

I can feel it deep.

A tension. Stretched somehow.

Is the tension because it’s fleeting? Activating the sense of loss, already? Telling you to grasp and hold onto it for as long as possible?

Or is it simply the feeling of arrival? A new day. Energy waiting to be activated. Our daily dose of fresh starts and metaphorical rebirths.

Both.

Excitement and loss in one.

I think about stillness.

Slowness.

A collective calm.

Where most, still sleeping, are united and held captive in the other realms.

I see a wide, rolling river, flowing in singularity before it’s broken by the waking earth.

Rise and shine- rings through my left ear, and something about it is triggering.

No. I’m not ready to rise, nor shine…

Let’s linger here, in the dark early, for a while longer.

I decide to write.

A discipline I engage with daily.

Typically, in a journal.

But today it’s here, which I normally would never do, since “here” is a public forum.

Why would I share a writing so random, vague, and topic-wise irrelevant, publicly?

But then I think, maybe that is the relevance.

Exercising irrelevance as a form of trust building.

Not trust per a reader, but trust in the relationship to one’s own writing itself.

Does writing always need to prove something?

Provide people with something?

Can writing… just be?

My dark garden grows lighter. The blues begin to turn.

The rays of the Sun are emerging, and dawn starts to slip away.

I’m on my second cup of coffee, and my cat sleeps at the foot of my bed.

I think about this moment, captured.

Grabbing my journal, I begin to write on its pages.

Describing Dawn in just a few sentences.

I see my grandmother.

She’s standing outside her sliding glass door.

Wearing her morning housecoat.

Waving.