Dawns Early Light

Before the dawn arrives there is a restless limbo in one's dreams. Perhaps it has slid into consciousness by the clacking call of a gecko somewhere on the blackness that is the ceiling. You know it is still the time of night before the dawn. The stars and moon are about to cede their hold in the firmament and fade stage center. So begins my favorite hour. The real show is about to begin. It only lasts about 45 minutes but in that time all time measures itself forward in a delicious, excruciating slow dance. It is now semi dark as the sky takes on a faint lightness like the thinest celestial gauze seen only at the edges of your vision. Just enough light exists to shuffle your way to the coffee maachine with care so as to not stub your toes on the furniture formless below your knees. That done you slide outdoors to the deep, teak, adirondack chairs and listen with ears awakened by the quiet. For you are here above the the beach, the Playa, of Camaronel in Costa Rica and where between your perch and the beach there extends more than a mile of valley floor.

Still in darkness all you first pick up are the sounds of night, the ever present distant roar of ocean waves exhausting themselves on the sands as they have since the beginning of time. Then you feel the warmth of the breezes wash over you to the clicking sounds of fronds of the date palm just off the terrace. Holding motionless and quieting your breathing to sharpen all your senses, the other harbingers of dawn space themselves out as if waiting their turn to speak.

The sky is a silver gray now and the first tints of peach hint at upper strata of denser air, clouds. Then across the valley, anchoring the far end of the beach, the headland and its outflowing spine like ridge begin to loom as a muscled mass of shadow. Skies turning silver white outline the bristled fuzz of treeline on the ridge's razor and all vestiges of the night and its stars though unmoved are now unseen. And just above the headland's hogback lie a bilious strata of cloud that will pre-announce the sun and the coming of its warming gifts. Is it any wonder that past civilizations were sun worshipers? It keeps all life alive within such a narrow range of temperature between freezing or boiling to death. Yet here it arrives as it has since the beginning to let us try again to make the best of its warmth.

Now the birds begin their songs, the howler monkeys tentatively clear their throats, even a far off rooster claims his share of the air. And the clouds above the mountain tell us the sun is coming by glowing their undersides with the reflected colors of radioactive oranges and pinks from the orb still unseen. All color intensely reaching their climax as the flaming fire breaks the ridge. It rises slowly and inevitably but you cannot watch it continuously as its power almost lazily climbs. You know you will sooner or later avert your eyes to such blinding force lest you sear your sight forever. Such is the magnitude of the sunrises' messenger. And with it's nuclear flare fully round the clouds now bleach themselves white and the valley floor gives up all its shadows and reveals their thousand shades of green.

You sigh at the wonder of this beginning, this gift of an awakening, of a fresh start and begin to breath more deeply and ponder what does this newness hold in store for us. Let us get busy living. But first that second cup of coffee.