Sunrise

This morning I forced myself to jog. The dark mornings and afternoons have left me with a very short window. I decided to get up and get going rather than languish with my cup of coffee and excuses.

Everyone knows that you'll never regret going. And this was the case one thousand times over this morning. Rather than do my regular route, I decided to head down to the promenade. I haven't run by the sea in ages because it's not as satisfying to have to double back and cover the same ground 3+ times. But this morning I was rewarded with the most beautiful sunrise I've ever seen.

As I headed south towards the jutting crag of Bray Head I wished for a camera. Instead, I had to memorize the view as I saw it. There's a part in Before Sunrise, one of my favorite romantic movies, where Ethan Hawke looks at Julie Delpy and says, "Let me take a picture." He didn't have a camera either.

A swath of coral sky was sandwiched between the parallel of the horizon and a bank of lilac clouds. From my vantage point the patch of sky only reached up a few feet from the sea before being topped by clouds. And just at the bottom of the clouds, the sun; its bottom half bright orange, hung suspended barely skimming the sea. For a second I imagined it was setting. It continued to rise into the purple clouds and I watched it until the smallest sliver disappeared leaving only deep coral in its wake.

As I turned back north the sea and sun were mostly at my back. When I reached the end and headed toward home and south again, the sun was entirely hidden by clouds. If I'd waited even 5 minutes I would have missed it. What was left of the sunrise was pink sky with violet rays slanting through to the sea like one of Titian's paintings.

That will be as much of the sun as I will likely see today. The clouds seem to have covered all of the sky like a blanket, turning the day grey. I'm glad I have my picture.