The Light of the Sun, by Laura Haldane

I stare down at my turquoise and yellow paisley flip-flops and flex my toes, trying to get the blood flowing again. I’m pretty sure my feet are turning blue, but it’s hard to tell in this light.  Socks would have been a great idea. I yawn, hoping this spectacle will be worth the pre-6:00 a.m. wake-up. I’ve never willingly risen before the sun—lugging myself out of bed any time before 9:00 a.m. counts as early in my book. I can already tell I will not be making a habit of it. But since an all-day car ride is the only thing I have to look forward to, I figure I can join the early birds, just this once.

I shift my weight around a bit in an attempt to prevent my legs from locking up. Two of my classmates and I wait in friendly silence on the sun-washed wooden dock that juts out into the Gulf of Mexico. We clutch cameras in our hands, eyes focused on the sky to the left of our position, watching for the first hints of the sun’s 6:11 a.m. awakening. 

Sunrises start slowly. At first, the sky stratifies into layers. Warm reds and oranges rest on the horizon like a blanket. A color somewhere between purple and blue dominates the rest of the heavens. The Gulf waters take on the same hue as the sky above, the shoreline acting as a stark boundary between the two. My breath clouds the air, mimicking the fog that drifts over the surface of the ocean.

The sky lightens in small increments, preparing us for what’s to come. A luminescent strip of yellow begins to creep over the treetops. As the light appears, I am suddenly more aware of myself than ever before. My body feels strange, but familiar at the same time. For one of the few times in my life, I am fully immersed in the present moment. I don’t think of the cramped white van with the California license plate we will soon be piling into, or the fact we will be leaving Mississippi for wintery Michigan in a few short hours. I pay no attention to my cold feet.

I forget I am on a dock in front of the Gulf Coast Research Lab in Ocean Springs in 2011. I feel as if I have been transported to a time long past. Pelicans and gulls appear as black shapes against the firmament, looking like flying, prehistoric creatures. The forest trees on the horizon transform into the canopy of a tropical jungle. If I ignore the lawn chairs and the dorm building behind me, I may as well be in the Mesozoic Era, when dinosaurs roamed and humans were not even players on the universal stage. 

This prelude to the sunrise feels like the tuning of an orchestra. The musicians begin to warm up, and the instruments come together to create an almost palpable burst of sound, a wave of noise that washes over the audience like a sentient breeze. In the same way, the individual wavelengths of light combine in a visual melody to herald in the start of a new day.

The sun’s halo appears first. Like the overture of a musical, it hints at the splendor that will soon follow. It starts off as a burnt orange and then slowly morphs into buttercup yellow as it rises in the sky, pushing back the remaining blue mantle of the night. For the first time, I am part of the audience for nature’s longest running show. I am at the figurative edge of my seat, eyes riveted on center stage.   

Finally, the curtains part and the star of the show appears. It bursts over the top of the trees, singing an aria for my eyes, rather than my ears. Its light illuminates the tendrils of fog, transforming them into tongues of flame that dance around the radiant orb. It quickly begins to rise above the trees, and my eyes tear up from its brightness. The Gulf reflects its brilliance as a second sphere appears in the water. 

I want to dive into the ocean and swim into the center of the sun’s reflected twin. I have just witnessed what feels like the dawning of the world, a spectacle as old as the Earth, yet new as the day that has just begun. I have experienced beauty in its truest, rawest form.  

In some of my memories, I’m looking at myself from a distance, a simple spectator, rather than a player in the unfolding action. When I recall the last day of my alternative spring break, I only see the sunrise. This remembrance plays out in front of me like a movie on a screen—and I watch it through my own eyes—perhaps because of the scale of its magnificence. 

In the light of the rising sun, I became just another miniscule part of the universe. Yet in my smallness, I did not become inconsequential, but momentous. I transformed into a being of infinite power and immeasurable possibility. I joined the world around me, connected with the sea birds, the twisted trees of the shoreline, and the waving water grasses.

The pictures I took make my heart ache with their beauty, but they are only a shadow of the spectacle. Two-dimensional mementos of that wild grandeur do not make up for the real thing.  But they have preserved the memory of that magical morning. For that, I am grateful.

Rachel Carson tells us, “In every outthrust headland, in every curving beach, in every grain of sand there is the story of the Earth.” Each daybreak ushers in a new chapter of this planet’s history. For roughly 4.5 billion years, the sun has poured its light onto this planet, providing fuel to the living creatures who call Earth home. This life-granting body has witnessed the entirety of human history and all that came before. What tales it would tell, if only it could speak.

Yet, the sun has a story of its own. Its legacy can be found in everything from the iridescent trees and jewel-toned flowers, to the miniscule phytoplankton and colossal whale. Humans, too, make up this narrative, of equal importance with all the other characters.



A law of radiation states that any object that absorbs light must also emit light. The sun passes its energy to us, and we glow in return. Sunlight pulses through the veins of all life. We must never forget that we are creatures of both sunlight and starlight. And we should never be afraid to shine.