By Betsy Gonwa, 
The orange color of our tent is not discernible when I awake. It will be awhile before dawn. I am still hoping to fall back asleep when my husband awakes.
“It’s 5:50,” he says. “We can get to Eagle Tower in time for the sunrise. Want to?”
I want nothing more than to stay curled in the warmth of my sleeping bag and I say so.
But the thought is alluring. I can’t remember the last time I watched the sun rise. “Well, I could slip on some clothes over my pajamas,” I say, still cherishing their warmth against my skin. It is something I used to do as a papergirl. In the winter months, still in my flannel pjs, I would slide into a snowmobile suit, and with one long zip, be dressed for the hour-long trek. Once out of bed, though, I decide to get fully dressed, pulling on a hooded sweatshirt and grabbing a windbreaker.
We are the only car driving along Shore Road in the gray of the morning, and the only ones at Eagle Tower. We sprint up the stairs, leaving the newly-built handicapped accessible ramp for another time, and are soon at the top, though my sprint has slowed to a steady walk for the last couple of flights.
Clouds lay against the horizon, and we watch and wait for pink to begin to show through. It takes awhile because of the clouds, and what we eventually see is a small view of the hot red of the sun through a crevice where one cloud lays above another.
As the sun gradually reveals itself, I am reminded of times when, waiting for a big shift, I did not even notice the little ones. Those little shifts that were happening could have given me hope, like the tiny slivers of light indicating the coming of the sun. When I used to look too far ahead, all I saw were clouds.
I am reminded of those times in my life when night was all I could see. Times when, even if there had been glimmers of light, I was so overwhelmed by the dark that I missed them for lying in bed. Times when I needed someone else’s encouragement to get up and get dressed. Times when seeing just a little light might have been enough to confirm to me that the sun was still there. Times when I have journeyed through grief and loneliness.
The beauty of this morning’s sunrise is found in the intermittent glimmers of orange coming one at a time in unexpected places, hinting at hope.
On the drive back to the campsite, we stop at an overlook to peek again at the horizon. It is not many minutes later, but clearly the long slow ascent through the clouds has finished. The sun shines as its familiar blazing star of yellow and white, too bright to look at for longer than a few seconds. It is entering into the arc it will make across the blue sky of a new day.
That’s where I am now, in a new arc of a new day. But I am mindful of what transpired those dark nights, and the growth that happened while I waited for the sun to become visible above the clouds.
What are you waiting for? And are you paying attention to what is happening while you wait?
