Forgive me, for I am about to slip into Andy Rooney mode. I don’t like Andy Rooney, but this post can only be described as of the Andy Rooney genre. In other words, a topic that is very personal and about which no one else will likely give a rip. Here it comes…
I prefer sunrises to sunsets.
This hasn’t always been the case. For my first thirty-something years, I was like most people, anticipating each day’s sunset for the potential magnificence of the colors, the light, the action. I’ve seen sunsets that are still burnt into my mind’s eye; spectacular visions that elicited gape-jawed awe. I’ve crowded into Mallory Square on Key West to watch them. I’ve watched the sun set from a bluff over Lake Michigan. I’ve seen it set over the Hudson from a Manhattan penthouse and from the window of my office in Santa Monica. I’ve watched the sun set through the charred skies of Beijing and the humidity of Bombay. One of the most memorable sunsets occurred as I sat in traffic on I-95 in Ft. Lauderdale, impelling me to dig into the backseat for my camera. The resulting photograph hardly did justice.
Certainly the arts — both fine and popular — have dramatized sunsets as metaphors for change, passion, nature’s awesomeness. And, of course, there’s that “red sky at night, sailors’ delight” business. Sunsets are just more popular than sunrises.
All this changed for me during a bout of insomnia about twelve years ago. I was living in New York, and my affliction was likely the result of being an out-of-work writer on the brink of leaving the City for want of just about everything. I found myself going to the Greek diner around the corner for pre-dawn breakfast a few days a week. One morning, I left the diner and headed back to my apartment, down 86th Street towards the East River. The light that seeped between the tall apartment buildings was of a shade I hadn’t before seen in the sky. Mist hung in the air and gave the light depth and the sense that you could walk into it and be surrounded by it. That’s what I wanted to do, as though on some spiritual journey to be a part of the light.
I walked down 86th and through Carl Shurz Park to the railing along the river. Describing such scenes in words will be like describing a great work of art, not because of the beauty but rather the nuance and passion that it evokes. But I will try.
The air was a soft but brilliant red. Not the sky, the air. The mist masked the sky but caught the light and held it. I couldn’t yet see more than a few hundred feet, the still river below and the faint silhouettes of buildings on the other side. For twenty minutes or so, the mist lightened it began to recede in billows that revealed the entire panorama. To the north, the Triborough Bridge and Hells Gate emerged, first in shades of red and orange and then yellow. A southbound tug boat stirred up the water and the wake glowed and then twinkled with light coming from the as yet invisible sun. To the south, the orange billows married with the first signs of the blue sky. The trees behind me were gilded with golden leaves.
As I stood at the railing, staring east into this scene, early-morning walkers and joggers stopped beside me. At first, I think they were curious about my intense focus, perhaps they thought I was watching a boat in peril or a fire out on Roosevelt Island. But when they did pause, they too surrendered to the embrace of the light and the beauty of the event. Apart from a few reactionary coos, they were silent. A few took seats on benches, but I stayed at the rail, wanting to be as engaged in the moment as I could.
The mist revealed the low-rises of Harlem and the smoke stacks of Queens, the 59th Street Bridge and the FDR leading to southern Manhattan. I’d seen these things a thousand times, but never had they been revealed to me like the slow grace of a brilliant celestial curtain. This sunrise was like a gift. Though I now had fellow travelers, some of whom had moved on to their work days, this experience was just for me.
That moment changed the way I look at the world, from anticipating moments to experiencing them, feeling embraced by the world and nature. It was an event that — entirely coincidentally, I am sure — marked a new beginning for me. Assignments started coming, opportunities widened, and my life just seemed different. Ironically, the peace of mind and resulting sleep caused me to miss the sunrise most of the time. Now when I need inspiration, I get up early to chase another sunrise like that one. Even the drab ones offer me something I don’t get anywhere else. And every few years, I witness a daybreak of such intense clarity it takes me back to the East River and to a moment when my world changed for good. Everyone’s world should change like that, every so often.
I’ve come to recognize that sunsets are finite and invariably end in darkness. Sunrises, on the other had, always start the same way, but they never really end, and you never know what that new day will hold.
The next time you feel a need for inspiration, invigoration, or just an embrace from nature — to remember what is good in your life and world — just get up early and look to the east.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming.