Danielle Blog

Sunrises

Kalki wrote a beautiful post about hiking in the early morning to be able to see a sunrise. It really touched me, and I realized that if it were Flickr, I would “favorite” it. Consequently, I decided to link to it here instead.

Her post brought back memories of our family trip to Port Aransas, TX last summer. It is on the eastern coast of Texas; it is farther east than Corpus Christi.

During the school year, I was getting up every day around 5:00. Even after school was over and we were into the latter part of summer, I continued to naturally wake up that early. This certainly has its pros and cons, because the morning is so peaceful. But this also means that I fall asleep around 9:00 most nights.

One morning I ventured outside; We had a balcony on the ocean. It was pitch dark out and I don’t know why I went out there that first time except that maybe it was that I was a little too cold from the air conditioning to read my book on the couch.

When I first opened the door, it was so dark that instead of being so attuned to my surroundings with my visual senses, the sound, temperature, and smell were what I noticed the most. I heard the sound of the waves rushing into shore with their rhythmic timing. I felt the warmth of the air on my face and the chill on my back as I crossed the threshold. I breathed in the humidity and tasted and smelled the salt that is so distinctive of the ocean.

And then I sat down in one of the chairs, my eyes adjusted and I began to notice the flickering lights on the oil rigs off shore.

I know, it sounds like such a disruptive break in this beautiful scene, but in actuality, they had a relaxed rhythm of blinking on and off, and it was actually peaceful and somewhat entertaining.

As some time passed, a glimmer of color appeared on the horizon and I realized that I could try to take photos to capture some small memory of those moments.

I took photos, struggling some with my camera settings, but in the end trying not to become so fixated on documenting that I stopped experiencing.

As the earth continued to rotate, the light on the horizon increased and suddenly there were silent birds flying and floating in the air currents coming off of the ocean. I could just barely see them; they were almost like silent shadows.

As the light continued to increase, the seagulls started calling. Other shorebirds were communicating too. I could see them more distinctly.

And then, the sun was present.

In the end, I watched the sunrise and took photos on four separate days. They are all in a set on Flickr. Each sunrise was very distinct which was amazing to me.

This one is my favorite, because it looks like a combination of a rainbow at the horizon and those astounding pink rays emanating from the sun which is still below the horizon.

Here is the link to the large size.

We are making plans to go back there this summer. We won’t have an ocean view this time, but I can still go down to the dock if I want and watch the sun rise.

I imagine that I will.