On a cold December Saturday, having gone for a walk by the sea after a quick visit to a busy cafe in the shopping center of the city (terribly noisy and hectic), I truly enjoyed the dark blue of the ocean, and the breaking of the neat and foaming waves against the shore. Suddenly, it all made perfect sense. The pink of the sky getting ready to say good-bye to the Sun for a day, the fiery purple a little further away where the Sun has just set, the reddish-green-blue at the other side of the sky where the birds are rushing up and down in their flight chasing something no human can fully understand.
I felt relaxation set in gradually, my shoulders sunk down, my breathing evened. No need to pretend, to act, to lie to myself and others. What a contrast with being in that cafe with so much pretense and busyness — humans cramped into a small space to eat, talk and leave theit tabe to make space for tohers to eat, talk and leave. I got to appreciate the sleepiness of the neighbourhood where I live — no busy shoppers, no showing-off “the Kalverstraat” – style. I got to appreciate the 30 minutes cycle that takes me from where I live to the city center — an exercise, the time to reflect, to sing and enjoy the wind, the views, the motion. And I had a thought that made me happy (I think I had it when I cycled back).
The thought went as follows: when the Sun sets down, darkness begins — the period that I associate with passivity, being inside, resting — something that I don’t enjoy in winters as days are too short. But there is knowledge that tomorrow the Sun will rise again, it’s automatic — we don’t need to do anything for that. No need to work hard to achieve it, not to force it to rise, not to push the night away. It happens by itself. And it’s a huge gift — every day we have a new day, a fresh start, new opportunities and new possibilities. Yes, also new challenges, but had we have no daily cycles, like they do on the Poles — half a year darkness, half a year light, life would have been so much duller. No reminders that everything is passing, and there is always another chance.
And then I had another thought — imagine that there is a plate of delicious and nourishing food that appears on your table every 12 hours automatically — that improves your mood and makes you vital and that you need to do nothing for to appear. That’s that happens with the Sun shows up in the sky every God’s day. A gift to cherish and to be grateful for. A miracle of existence.
This may sound esoteric, banal and/or mundane, and indeed much has been written on the gifts of the Sun rising up daily. But it’s something else to experience it, to feel that gift and to anticipate, even wait for seeing the Sun in the morning, as your friend or a lover. What a gift!