If you are thinking of the future you are anxious
If you are living in the present you are at peace"
When I was 17 my high school guidance counselor asked me to write an essay about something or someone that inspired me or made an impact on my life. This essay was to be submitted to college for acceptance into their university as if it was a complete judge of my character and who I was. As I travel around another country ten years later (almost to date) I recalled again the event and person in which I wrote that essay about. I realize how accurate the words I wrote back then really were and how much my essay was about a life lesson, and not just an acceptance plea.
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| Days first sunrise 7:03 a.m. March 8, 2013 East Cape NZ |
On Friday March 8, 2013 I woke at 4 a.m. with a thumbnail moon hanging low in the sky and cold still clinging to the night air. I had stayed the night at Marae Haku, a small and very quiet grounds next to the Sea on the North East Cape of New Zealand's North Island. I usually do not wake up early, and when I do wake I prefer to do so in my own time...slowly with no rush to be anywhere. Well this morning was an exception that my body was just going to have to handle, I could have very easily snuggled down into my borrowed green sleeping bag and drifted back to sleep, but thinking of that life lesson, the one I based my entire college essay on, I crawled out of the tent. Today I was driving to Te Aroha about an hour East. After packing all I own back into the car, strapping the now 3 surfboards across the top, and assuring my Uruguay-en passenger was sleepily in the seat next to me, I wound around the uneven narrow gravel roads while still rubbing sleepies from my eyes. Coming to an end at a remote farm plot I parked the car, and climbed 749 stairs to the top of the hill. Upon arrival there were 7 others sitting on cliffs edge waiting in near silence, in the minutes that followed 4 others arrived. The sky began to lighten and although the clouds were thick, 12 people of the 7 billion of us on Earth watched as the sun rose on a brand new day. (Although there is no "technical" first point where the sun first rises and is seen each day and depending on how you look at the question there are a few different locations and answers, but to the best of my knowledge this point in NZ is one of the first spots on Earth that is inhabited and can be easily viewed where the sun rises on a new day.)
For me this sunrise symbolized life, breath, and freedom, something that my dad showed me some 20 years ago. Even back then I was not a morning person, but one Easter morning he dragged Justin and I out to Lake Ontario to watch the sunrise. This he said is what life's about and although my dad is not "religious" I took it as this is what we are thanking God for. The sunrise on each new day is all we need to know that we are alive and fortunate to be where we are. In 2003 that was the moment that I described in my "essay" of life altering experiences and it is a moment that I thought of yet again as I sat watching the sky change color, the clouds become lined with pink and bright rays of light pushed their way through through the dark gray sky. It might not seem like much, but once in awhile sit in the presence and enjoy that your life has another sunrise.
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