Beating the Sunrise

I am not a morning person. I'll be honest, on the few mornings that I wake up at a reasonable time, I do happen to do my most productive work. Yet somehow, I have never been able to muster the energy to drag myself out of bed in those early hours on a regular basis.

But that morning I did. 5am, tired and cold, I dragged myself out from underneath the warmth of my blanket and headed out of the house into the night air. The entire drive to the base of the mountain, all I wanted to do was turn around and crawl back home and into bed. Even the contagious energy of our overly awake Uber driver, jamming out to Celine Dion, did nothing to wake me up.

That was soon to change, however. Cape Town has a certain magic in it. A power to surge life into even the most tired of souls. As I stood at the base of the mountain, layered up in the winter air, I felt its call. An invitation from the top I knew I couldn't turn down. And so the hike began.

The call of the summit continued all the way up. Jogging along stony paths, clambering up metal ladders in the rock face, scrambling the last leg over boulders, jumping from one to the next. And the summit was in front of me. I barely felt like I had started and the view was already there. That's what the call of the mountain did. Infused you with its energy, so climbing it became easy, climbing it became necessary because you had to get to the top no matter what. A good thing too as there was no time for rests with the sky lightening with every passing second. A moment to catch our breath at the top before the golden globe began to peek out of the mountainous horizon.

It rose, inch by inch casting a warmer and warmer glow on the waves below. They cascaded their golden light onto the beaches and buildings of the city meters and meters beneath our feet.

In that moment, sat over the edge of the rock, staring at the expanse of ocean before me, the world went silent. This moment was completely my own. I don't know whether everyone else was in the same silent awe that I was, or simply, feeling like I was on the edge of the world, managed to shut everything else out, but I was completely at peace. Any worry that had been on my mind drifted away with the last traces of darkness, overrun with the golden glow that grew with every passing minute.

Beneath me the city was beginning to wake up, people yawning, groaning, getting ready for work. But up here, in the golden heavens, there was nothing but tranquillity. I don't know how long I sat there, entranced by the beauty of the sight before me. It was long enough to sear the memory of that view, that feeling, permanently into my heart. Now, over a year and a half later, the memory of that mountaintop is as clear as it ever has been.

The world has changed completely in this past year. Chaos and devastation has rattled our streets and our homes. At times the pressure has built in all of us to breaking point. But I can always bring myself back with a memory of the happiest time in my life. That memory never ceases to gift me the same feeling of tranquillity I felt gazing over the golden waves on that early South African morning.