Secrets of Dawn

The weather is mild enough to sleep with the windows open. Before the flutter of dawn nudges our eyelids open, we can hear the birds start their pre-dawn songs. I love closing my eyes, allowing the peculiar chilliness of that hour’s breeze to caress my face and lie still listening to the excitement outside.

Tell me what is your secret o’ joyful bird? Who whispered to you secret thrills that have you screaming with such palpable joy? What is it that keeps your chatter so unmistakably rapturous?

On my best mornings I wake up full of energy with the quiet knowledge that I will have a good day and already feeling grateful for it. The rest of the mornings, I have to consciously stifle the groan that gurgles in my throat “Is it time to wake up already?” Pressing my eyelids closer together, I spend a couple of moments dreading the flurry of activities awaiting me.

I am trying to jog my memory for the last time I woke up with such excitement to be alive! With such palpable joy coming out of those little birds, flying and fluttering and not necessarily knowing when they are getting their next meal but confident in their flight nonetheless.

It doesn’t stop with the birds, for the songs of dawn are distinct in their fresh alacrity. There is a perceptible humming all across the universe; the million and one sunrises each unique with its confident glow and each as mesmerizing to an awakened soul. There are the subtle dances of trees, shaking their limbs alongside the breeze and birds, allowing them rest at their crowns before they take flight and wishing them well as they speed into the horizon. There are gathered drops of the heart’s tears slowly dripping off blushing petals and leaves as they emerge blossoming with laughter.

There is the incredible stillness, cleansing the soul of its anxieties and memories, offering that little taste of pure serenity, as the light gradually swells the crevices of night and bursts open yet another harried day that has us running around in circles.

What is the secret that is quietly apprehended by the whole universe but somehow evades us more and more as the years pass?

There must be something in the unseen still whispering in my baby’s ears; for he never fails to join in Dawn’s frolicking, always waking up with an irrepressible smile even after those nights of interrupted sleep. I wonder at his joy and fear the day he will whine when I whisper “Sabahil Kheir habiby”; that day he will become like the “rest of us.”

I have tasked myself with the near impossible; that is hoping I can somehow nurture him in a way that will keep his heart in awe with life and keep intact that primal joy as he re-experiences yet another day of living and another miracle of witnessing.

Of course, I can’t even begin to hope for him to accomplish anything of that sort, if I am groaning by my bedside. So I have been inculcating the taste of this joy in myself. To consciously channel gratitude as my first thought when I wake up; and recount all the reasons I am blessed and loved.

These past few dawns, cheered on by the sparkling notes of birds and humming songs of praise around me; and guided by my son’s delightful gaze; I am heartened to believe that perhaps waking “at dawn with a winged heart and giving thanks for another day of loving” is not at all out of reach.