However many words the Inuit have for snow, we should have for morning light. There is a long lag between dawn and sunrise, and in that time the world remakes itself in a subtly different way every day.
Morning walkers at The Tan in South Yarra.Credit:Simon Schluter
I’m late to earliness, I admit. Lockdown has expanded my horizon. I’ve spent a lifetime searching for what lies over it. Now I’ve discovered a world on this side. Contraction has become enlargement.
When lockdown came, I extended my regular morning walk to take in a big nearby urban park. I’ve walked the same route at the same time just about every weekday for six months now. No two mornings have been exactly alike. A necessity became a virtue, a virtue a joy.
I’ve walked in darkness and walked just as that first faint glimmer appears in the sky. I’ve walked in first light, sometimes yellow, sometimes orange, sometimes saffron, sometimes pink, sometimes pure brilliant white, seeping into the clouds, spreading across the sky and washing over the landscape.
I’ve walked into that explosion when the sun first peeps and then bursts over the treetops, and its light really does fall in rays and shafts. I’ve felt it on my face and on my back, solar power for my system.
I’ve watched the new light reflect off leaves, glow on ghost gums, glisten on dewy grass, glint off tram tracks and sparkle from the towers of the city in the backdrop.
I’ve marvelled to watch the sun move quarters, and how the slants of light and shadow shift, and the way the landscape continually changes shape, though nothing in it moves.
I’ve seen brilliant sunrises, mellow sunrises, misty sunrises and mornings with no sun at all. Like life, it takes all sorts. Sometimes, I’ve walked in thick, soundless fog, a world within a world. I’ve walked into winter and out again.
I’ve watched runners pad along, other walkers stride out, dogs frisk. I’ve watched and listened to birds. They’re out in the mornings by the thousands, pecking for worms or darting and swirling and swooping in the sunlight. The sound they make is like a symphony orchestra warming up, a melodic cacophony.
I’ve watched the leaves turn and fall, seen bare branches like menorahs in silhouette. I’ve been there on the spot when the first buds reappeared, quickly turning into blossoms, every glorious wattle leading the parade.
I don’t know the names of all the birds and trees and shrubs and cloud formations. This is a crash course. I don’t know the names of the other walkers and runners, but I do know their faces. We are the people of the dawn. Our faces shine (even behind masks).
I don’t want to be too smug about this. I’ve also seen the still bleary eyes of the early morning tradies and truckers and delivery drivers. I understand my home-worker kid-free privilege.
This morning curtain call has become my daily mental health medicine, cost-free, no prescription needed. It makes each morning literally a fresh beginning.
Greg Baum is a senior writer.
Greg Baum is chief sports columnist and associate editor with The Age.
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