I won’t get into how it started, not entirely, that’s a story for another day. Nor will I tell you how it unfolded, because those are many and marvelous stories yet to come. But before we close out 2021, I will share a bit about what I experienced at the start of these celestial rendezvous’.
The truth is, I never set out to see every sunrise of an entire year. On the contrary, I merely committed to the first 17 days of January, while I was home on staycation. Having just crawled into 2021 exhausted from nine harrowing months of pandemic response, I was desperate to find something that might refill my hollowed spirit. A new year’s start offered me a wonderful line in the sand, the life before, and the new life.
As I do every year, I made my New Year’s Resolutions, one of which was to bring my life into balance. Not ‘back’ into balance, because I can’t say that it’s ever felt that way, at least not in my adult life. I imagined and thought it might be possible to live in a way that left a bit of space for life. But, how does one do this? It escaped me. However, given that I had this free time in the deep freeze of Winnipeg, I decided to explicitly name and put into action a few small yet restorative practices, as suggested by many online sources.
Said practices included…
- Writing a daily blog and posting it, however unpolished and imperfect it might be. This forced me to suspend my desire for perfection and allow for progress. The idea was to return to the ritual of journaling, writing out my memories or thoughts, giving them a place to live outside my mind, thus silencing some of my inner dialogues.
- Reading for pleasure. Sounds funny perhaps, but I generally spend most of my time reading books and magazines related to my work, then and now, so the challenge was to invite my imagination back to the table, relishing in the stories of others.
- Getting outside daily, for the benefits of regular exercise and fresh air, reconnection with nature, and a chance to be alone. Because I’m not one to wander around aimlessly, I set for myself a destination, a bridge close to my home, and decided on a consistent time of day, one that was not on my schedule, but rather demanded I show up at its bequest. Sunrise.
Done, three new practices for seventeen days. Or so I thought.
January 1st, 2021 I woke up shorty after 5 am, my usual time. I bask in the earliest, darkest hours of the day, when the kids are sound asleep, the world is quiet, and it’s just my thoughts and I. Under a small lamp, I curled up on an armchair looking out the large front window, draped my shoulders with a blanket, and started reading. A while later, I put down the book and opened my laptop. Stories were crowding my mind, stories of my mother, my childhood, memories of my life. Before I got lost in the narrating, I set an alarm on my phone, 20 minutes before sunrise. It read ‘Get ready to greet the sun… gratitude, forgiveness, hope’. It was set for every day and still is. The alarm was needed to ensure I didn’t miss the moment, in case I got so lost in a story I was writing. It was a wise thing to do and has saved the day many times.
I didn’t know that when I got there, that at the sight of a vast, open horizon, I’d begin to feel so tenderly embraced. I immediately stopped feeling terribly alone. The sun was a living presence, it had a voice, warmth; it listened without judgement to my sorrows. It knew me, saw me, and loved me. Deep in my heart, I felt that beyond its colours, was my mother’s resting place. Here, I was closest to her again.
Every day I came back and every day she was there.
I couldn’t have known how much I hungered for the safety and security of something that was unwavering and constant. In the chaos of the first months of the global pandemic, when the ground beneath our feet shifted daily and almost everything felt uncertain, the sun was ever present. She was larger than all the pain on this tiny, spinning marble that is our home. She was softly compassionate, a fountain of hope, and the promise of new beginnings.
And this was our beginning, the sun’s and mine, an unexpected friendship. And we were brilliant together.
