Yesterday, I went looking for a sunrise. The morning was cold enough to demand presence. Cypress Mountain stood still beneath a heavy sky, wrapped in shadow and cloud, offering no immediate promise of light. It didn’t look like a sunrise kind of day. I stayed. I took photographs without certainty. I breathed in the cold air and let it slow me down. I waited—listening, watching, allowing the landscape to decide. Then, almost imperceptibly, the horizon shifted.
A thin line of orange appeared, fragile and brief, as if testing whether it was allowed to exist. The dark sky softened into deep blue. What followed felt like a quiet negotiation between cloud and sun—one retreating, the other insisting.
Time stretched. Color emerged in layers: muted yellows, warm oranges, blues deepening into violet. The light didn’t arrive all at once; it revealed itself slowly, deliberately, as if it knew it was being witnessed.
The cold disappeared. There was only the view—the trees, the sky, the unfolding moment. The sunrise didn’t perform. It simply arrived, steady and honest, welcoming the day in its own language. I had come searching for a sunrise.
