I Like to Watch...

I like to watch. It’s hard to say exactly why, but that’s the truth of it: I just like to watch her.

And of all the different situations and scenarios in which I like to watch her, this, I’m quite sure, is my favorite. It’s 5:30 AM and most of the normal world is still asleep, but she’s been up for more than 30 minutes already. She doesn’t do this every morning, but, a few times a week, this is her routine: She gets up early, puts on a baggy sweatshirt, some shorts and takes her cup of coffee outside to sit the dunes and watch the morning sun rise up out of the sea.

Sometimes I join her; sometimes, like this morning, I just sit on the deck and watch her. It’s about 100 yards from where I sit on the old porch swing on our wrap-around deck to where she sits on the dune, so, because it’s still dark but getting lighter, I only see her shadowy figure against the slowly coloring sky.

What’s she doing? She’s watching the morning come. It’s something she never tires of doing and I could sit here and watch her do this for hours and never tire of it.

Have you ever felt so much love for someone that you thought your heart would break just from the weight of carrying it? Do your eyes ever pool with tears of joy simply at the sight of something so stunningly beautiful and natural that your body just has to respond and tears is only way it knows how?

Have you ever hiked high up into the mountains following a path through a thick forest and come around a bend to discover a grassy meadow you didn’t expect to find, and in that meadow you saw a fawn grazing peacefully in the dew-covered grass; your eyes changing focus to discover the fawn’s mother about 10 yards behind also grazing, completely comfortable in this place and totally oblivious to your presence? They fit so perfectly, they belong here and you sense the perfect harmony in which they live.

Your very soul goes through a cosmic struggle of love and longing—a longing to know this kind of harmony and crushed by the knowledge that it isn’t meant for you—you want so much to enter into that place but you know how unnatural you are and that your presence would destroy their harmony...

So you just watch and soak it in for as long as you can.  The tear reminds you that it is possible to miss something that you have never known…

That’s what I feel right now watching her watch the morning come.

It’s like the James Taylor song: “Karen sees the silver sun, you best walk her way and watch it shine; watch her watch the morning come. A silver tear appearing, now I'm crying, ain't I, … There ain't no doubt in no one’s mind that love’s the finest thing around, whisper something soft and kind…”

The sheer beauty of this moment and waves of love that flow through me have a tear slowly rolling down my cheek.

I have no desire to wipe it away.

Posted in: #15habits, beach, fiction, James Taylor, love, mountains, writing