SUNRISE

A few days ago, while running early one morning across the bridge near Noborito station that stretches across the Tama River, I noticed a middle-aged lady patiently setting up her camera near the railing, adjusting the lens, fidgeting with the stand, waiting for the sun to rise.

She was getting ready to take its picture, obviously. Every day the sun rose in the exact same spot, lookingly mostly the same, dull and orange and then red and full. I don't see her there every day. I've only seen her once, come to think of it. There was something about that sun that she wanted. On that day. And that day only. Perhaps it was a sudden whim, that wish of hers. She got up early, and drank her coffee, and suddenly decided that she wanted to see the sun rise over the Tama River, and take its picture, and see what sense she could make from such a simple act.

That's what I'm thinking.

It made me feel hopeful. The sun rising on a cold, frosty, late December morning. Something so simple and extraordinary about it. Most people were sleeping, lost in dreams, tucked between sheets. She was there, bundled up, on that bridge, taking notice of the most ordinary thing in the world. Preserving it, even. Some day, years from now, when middle age gave way to the ghastly dubbed 'golden years', she would look through an album and point at that picture and even though she might not be able to remember exactly when it was taken, or even why, within that frame the sun would still rising, constantly, moving upward, getting ready to shine.