It is not a quiet nor peaceful morning, and R. is awake, too, sitting cross-legged on his sheet a few feet behind me, his face turned toward the east as well. The other girls-- D. and A. and M.-- are comatose still, and I decide not to wake them. The sky is cloudy, after all, and doesn't promise much in the way of sunrise. The birds are going crazy, like this will be the BEST! SUNRISE! EVER!, but I suspect that is what they always do.
To my left, the Arab boys (whose singing and drums and laughter didn't fade till nearly three-thirty in the morning) are dragging themselves one by one out of their tents, to sit in exhausted silence huddled at picnic tables, or to amble across their patch of dust and gravel. One has a camera; he faces east, too.
Behind me is the main road closest to the Sea. It's been filled with commercial trucks and commuters' cars for at least half an hour, providing engine and brake noise that at times drowns out the ecstatic pigeons and other birds.
To my right is a large set of empty "campsites" (if the tiny lots of littered ground and lopsided picnic benches can be called that), but at the far end of this section is a tight family group of tents. I spot a white-haired shirtless Arab man emerge from one of these tents. A few minutes later, and my ears tell me that he is "cleaning up" by raking away all the trash from last night. He leaves it all in a large pile beside the picnic table, though, and stops, seeming satisfied.
There are already children in the sea in front of and a little to the left of us. Their splashes and boy-child cries of, "Come!" (the one word I recognize) and other Hebrew phrases are carried through the morning air to me. I can't see them, though; the reeds and sea grass are just high enough.
The sky is a light delicate pink just above the blue and grey clouds, and as I watch, a dark rim of passionate pink marks where the sun is fighting for its right to rise. The dark pink streak fades after a moment, and I am convinced that was all there will be to the sunrise today. I keep still, though, and watch the sea. It is calm this morning, but out of the corner of my eye I glimpse something-- a bird? a fish?-- dive and leave a rippling mark on the calm surface.
I wonder what this place was like, two thousand years ago, when You were here. Was it noisy even then? More beautiful? More cruel and rugged?
I sit still, busy with my thoughts and the flies and ants that have been fascinated by my body since I showed signs of life. I consider getting up, wrapping up my sheet, going to the bathroom to wash up.
And then it happens.
In an act of supreme defiance and victory, the sun bursts over the clouds. Like a burning sphere of liquid gold, it rests for one glorious moment in a tiny cloud valley, looking for all the world like a flaming gem set in a dull-metal ring. I have to look away, or risk losing my sight. I watch the sun's reflection on the water, instead, and think about what brought me here. A botched car rental, nearly five hours of riding and waiting for buses, a last-minute scramble and final success with renting a different car, miles of walking with our myriad luggage, the docks of the Sea at sunset, eating mainly bread and fruit for most of the day, the full pale moon and scattered stars over the Sea, the quiet conversation over "dinner" late at night. The golden sun reminds me of what I've always known, but tend to make light of--
And, just like the sun, You cannot be hidden forever. Your glory will be shown.
In a few seconds, though, the sun is once again swallowed in the clouds, and I smile to myself over the poverty of my metaphors to describe You.
Beside me, A. turns over, asks what time it is. I want to tell her, "just after the most real and beautiful sunrise I've ever seen," but instead--
"Six-fifteen," I say.
And just like that, the moment is gone.
But I have it still, captured in the recesses of my heart. And I know that You will not let me forget.
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