You can’t really ever hope to describe the wildness of it. Of standing in front of a sunrise that is born from the ocean, of watching waves crest just underneath the dawning of a new day. The moment when you say to yourself, My God, this is real.

Something is born in that moment, that short span of time when the golden orb wrests itself lose from the depths of the sea and plunges itself headlong and fully into the sky. All along the horizon, the ocean, the earth itself, seems to swell. With pride, with excitement, who can know. The waves crashing at your feet seem bigger, crash with greater magnitude and majesty…but slower, maybe. As though they too wish to see the show.

On this day, that process unfolds before my eyes. I’m not ashamed to say that I do not trust my voice. It’s too beautiful to describe with less ham-fisted rhetoric than I employ here.

But now, the sun is safely ensconced in the low-lying bank of clouds. It’s fully light out, and the birds, who have been singing their approval all morning, are now no longer experiencing any competition for the entertainment that their escapades provide. In fact, a trio of small white hoppers has just landed near me, skittering in and out of the weakest waves in their protean search for breakfast.

It hasn’t been this cool in what feels like months. 69° is a luxury in South Florida, as rare as an Aston Martin. But today, it feels like luxury takes a backseat, to sidelong crashing waves, and a sunrise that very nearly caused me to weep at its story.

As I turn to leave, a crew of six pelicans swoops through, low, gliding over the shallow waves. Now five more. Now seven. Now a huge throng of seagulls, squalling and dancing twenty feet from shore. The once yellow sun is now hidden behind a thick bank of white cloud, a large yellow bulb that has paled to a more neutral shade. Morning is here.

I’m not sure that this is the best photo I took this morning. Actually, I’m certain of it. But it’s the photo that grabbed the sun just as it began its journey. And so, it is the most honest and most true to the sentiment I awkwardly grasp at in this note.