Day 2: Seeing with New Eyes
Monday, March 30, 2026
Sunrise time: 7:30 a.m.
My first day back to work after a two-week break felt like a slog, especially after waking at 3 a.m. and lying awake until 4:30. But just before my alarm, the birds began their chorus—a wake-up that usually annoys me. Today, I leapt out of bed.
I grabbed my dad’s warm Canadian lumberjack jacket and drove to the reservoir. Stepping out of the car, the first sound was theirs. The birds claiming the pre-dawn. Even on only my second morning, the newly revealed wetlands felt familiar, as if the landscape remembered me.
I followed their song through the reeds down to the water. Many moved in twos, scattering when I approached, and I felt a pang of jealousy. How easily they flew when uncomfortable and threatened. Free in the air, unburdened, unbound.
A photographer pulled up in the parking lot and tediously made his way through the wetlands. From time to time, I glanced over at him in disbelief—his camera pointed south while the sunrise waited to burn in the east. What was he doing? He was missing it.
My attention returned to two white figures I’d first mistaken for swans—pelicans—floating in the quiet water, completely present, not worried about what the next hour might bring. I wanted in.
Beneath my feet, the reservoir’s bottom had emerged from the drought—mud and rust-colored reeds with a few sprigs of green, life thriving above the surface. Absence had created something new and unexpected. Curious, I found a path to an adjacent pond I hadn’t reached the day before, hopping over pockets of water.
I was so preoccupied with my explorations that I almost missed the sun as it rose slowly, a yellow fire spilling across the water. Warmth, assurance. I didn’t have long to linger before I needed to head home. It still burned just as hard as the day before but I didn’t let my gaze linger too long this time.
As I walked back to the car, clouds dimmed the light. And just like that, the golden kingdom vanished.
The photographer was back in the parking lot, and at this point, we were probably equally curious about each other. He told me he’d been unsuccessfully tracking a pair of eagles that had settled across the lake for the winter. It sounded incredible, but I’m not exactly a wildlife photographer. Spotting an eagle seemed way above my pay grade.
He asked if I came here often. I mumbled my answer that I was watching the sunrise all week. But on the drive home, as the sun reappeared—bright and bold—I realized what I should have said. Yes. I’ve lived here ten years. I’ve surfed, swum, paddleboarded, even cold-plunged this lake in the winter.
And yet, only this week had I truly slowed down to wait for the sunrise. Only now had I really seen it. Only now had I begun to understand the quiet freedom in being present…and the trust that comes from watching the day unfold.