Everlasting Dawn

I am a tea junkie: earl grey, orange pekoe, pekoe black; spiced, flavored, infused. Non-caffeinated varieties like chamomile and peppermint lure me in, as well. Tea symbolizes the magic of daybreak: a glistening cup of hot, golden liquid, waiting to be sweetened, sipped, and savored. As much as I enjoy tea, the more substantial morning treats are worth mentioning: A banana—thick, sturdy, on the brink of ripeness—sliced and stirred into a heaping serving of Greek yogurt, decorated with a drizzle of organic amber honey. Two extra large eggs, scrambled easy over a melted slab of butter, served with a hunk of toasted Persian bread; more butter. Oatmeal, steel-cut, boiled on the stove, with chunks of peaches and a spoonful of plump raisins, cooled with half a cup of creamy low-fat milk. Forget about limiting these concoctions to breakfast; I will eagerly nosh them any time of day. In fact, like the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings, I often indulge in what I call “second breakfast.” The morning meal is sacred to me, just as the morning itself. Mornings, by their very nature, evoke memories of innocence, of purity, of possibility. I love to wake up to a freshly washed day, to open my eyes with childish curiosity, to step outside in wonder of what might happen or what I might accomplish. When noontime rolls around, there is a subtle but inevitable sense of loss, knowing that the day is half over, my chances half gone, my energy dwindling. By evening, I am longing for the next new day. This morning, as if by divine intervention, a word crept into my mind: Rededication. All at once, I realized why I have always wanted my mornings to last forever. The morning is a time for rededication. Whatever mistakes we made yesterday, whatever wrongs we caused, when morning arrives, we awaken with a dose of clarity; we can rededicate ourselves to being better. We can do this by remembering our early innocence, and we can rededicate ourselves to our youth at any age. We can rededicate ourselves to our values, to our goals, to our loved ones. We can commit ourselves to a lifetime’s worth of fresh starts, the newness that only dawn knows. We can make choices that help us feel alive the way a rich breakfast renews our energy, the way a sunrise stirs our soul. We can begin again. In the afternoon of my life, I appreciate the early hours more than ever. Perhaps it’s time to engage in a game of childhood make-believe, to imagine the duration of my existence as one long morning, cracked gently open on the edge of a hot pan, running free with everlasting opportunity. What do you do with your mornings?