Up early for sahur. Fasting is a trial and a demonstration, and if Muslims don’t write very much about it, that might be because it’s such a consuming practice. Focus is required to stay yourself and writing, which is an othering of the self, becomes impossible, irrelevant. I do not fast but I do wake up early to help, and to witness. And I do enjoy the morning.
My favorite time of day is the early hours, the stillness of the dark and the freshness of dawn light, the quiet that slowly awakens. This morning the sunrise brings with it a thunderstorm, pale light and rain coming at once, like a heavy sigh of release. Jeki huddles in my lap and glares at the inundated morning.
But the pale glow begins to turn golden. Soon sunbeams will pierce the grey clouds, and day will chase away the dawn, with its brightness and noise and heat. Birdsong will fade behind the growl of traffic, clarity will give way to obviousness, and inward potential will be burned off by the relentless activity of coming and going, until all words are spent and externality is complete.