Sounds Of Real Life On Planet Earth

It’s 5:30.

AM.

In the morning. 

It’s dark.

It was dark when you went to bed at 1:00 AM and set the alarm on your Android phone.

Yours is a mind filled with activity, in anticipation of things to come. 

Or things already past.

Or both.

It was dark when you finally fall asleep at 2:39 AM.

It’s a fitful “rest”, and you toss and turn, but it is, in fact, some sort of sleep, though you don’t quite reach REM until about 5:15 AM. But it’s still dark, and you dream. You dream of a most pleasant time…

…You are walking along the beach, the waves softly rolling onto the shore, a gentle, breeze whispers through your hair and cools your face after a warm day, seagulls singing as they ride currents thirty feet overhead. You stop and turn to gaze upon the open sea as the sun gently lowers itself below the western horizon, taking with it all of the stress of the day gone by. 

You’ve heard of it, but have never taken the time to stop and notice – and marvel at – the beauty of the fabled “Green Flash”. For years – no, decades – you have read about it. You have listened to your friends speak most eloquently about the stunningly dazzling sight. 

But now, after all this time, you are ready. Ready to cast aside all of the anxieties of the day. Ready to discard the apprehensions of tomorrow. Ready to immerse yourself, completely, in the magnificence of nature. 

Nature above you. Nature below you. Nature in front of you. Nature behind and beside you. The only thing man-made object within range of any of your senses is you, yourself, and even you are a product of nature.

You take a deep, cleansing breath…

You have found peace. Tranquility. Stillness…

This, at last, is what life was meant to be. Not the disquiet of the daily grind mankind has wrought upon itself.

As you stand there alone, bathed in the incomparable majesty of God’s creation, the anticipation of the marvelous spectacle you are about to witness builds. Any moment now, the sun will blink out below the distant boundary that separates the sky from the sea and, if you are lucky, you will behold what comparatively few have been fortunate enough to notice throughout the ages.

You wait, watching in silence…

Until the moment finally arrives…