I rediscovered the beauty of the morning sunrise today -- that warm glow that advances on the world, announcing the coming sun which, when it rises, casts its light across everything there. There's a feeling to that glow -- the orange-hued light illuminating the waking world, sparkling the frost clinging to the grass and plants, hoping to hold out against the coming warmth. Warmth -- that's it. No matter how cold the night before, that first step outside on a cold winter morning, the coming sun brings warmth. And hope. The hope of a new day, flooded with open possibilities and new discoveries, new decisions. There's the chance that this is the day, you know, the one you've been waiting for. The one when It happens, whatever didn't happen yesterday.

That check comes in the mail. ... You get the approval. ... She calls back. ... You meet someone who will change your life. ...

It could happen today. If not, maybe tomorrow, maybe another sunrise.

As I sat there on the beach this morning, waiting for my photographic model to arrive, I looked around at the deserted coastline I had to myself -- even with the hotel rising behind me -- and felt a strong sense of control over that moment, and the day. There is that feeling of getting a head start on everyone else when you rise with the sun, that starting gun to the day which determines when it can all begin.

Those up with the sun are of a slightly different breed. They own the morning, just as those who work while others sleep own the night. They have their routines of gliding through the morning, stopping for coffee, all in a trance but recognizing those in the same groove, those whom they see each day. Then when someone else gets up one morning, he steps into this world, intrudes upon it. They knew he doesn't belong there, that tomorrow he'll be back in bed. And they just let him go, leaving him alone and carrying on with their own schedule.