I had no choice. I had a traffic court date and the time on my ticket was listed as 08:30. Though I often arise at 5:00 am, I rarely have to dress and leave the house before sun up. I wasn’t aggravated, exactly, but I did feel imposed upon, preferring my easier routine of sipping coffee in my robe until 8:00. Nevertheless, I had to go.

As I turned east onto Hwy 20, from Peachtree Industrial and motoring toward Lawrenceville, I saw it. Leafless hardwoods and spiky pines on the ridge intertwined like black lace backlit with a huge canvas of sky splashed with bold neon pink, gold and mauve. Late December dawn.

At the top of the hill at 20 and PI, I had the perfect advantage point. Driving straight into it, I could watch it evolve without turning my head, or taking my eyes off the mounting morning traffic. Though it only lasted all of about ten minutes, it was a magnificent, breathtaking show and I would have missed it, if I hadn’t have gotten that ticket back in mid November. Funny how things work out when you look for the positive side.

So what? You might ask. The inconvenience and the $45 fine wasn’t worth it; it was just sunrise. I would disagree. True, it was only another dawn, not unlike many I have seen before, but this one was important to me because it was a wake up call, reminding me that I hadn’t bothered to look up in many, many months. And while I am grateful to be able to work at home and not have the morning commute that so many others are forced to endure, I miss the big sky dawns because of the thick stand of tall trees near our house. Dawns occur, of course, but I don’t often witness them. In a sense, they happen without me. This disturbs me.

This also left me wondering what else passes me by, every single day. What opportunities do I ignore? What doors do I fail to open? What gifts do I keep under wraps and unshared? What do I waste? And most importantly, will I be held accountable for these lost moments?

Every dawning, both the bold ones and the gray, unfolds with great promise like a perfect rose. There is so much that can be accomplished during the light hours. Like a gift given but squandered, we think it doesn’t matter because another, just like it, will arrive as the earth completes a 360 degree revolution, in a short twenty-four hours. But are we foolish to assume the days are like pennies, not worth much and something of a nuisance, tossing them aside, unused? How can we be so cavalier? So impudent? So arrogant? So busy being busy?

We are born to die, the poet said, and so we are, but before we do, we have something of an assignment to spend the days given to us with enthusiasm and appreciation; to open our eyes and minds to the possibilities of what we could do with the precious minutes granted to us. And when we are done, will it be said of us that we gave it our best? Did we even try? How often did we pause at the wonders and perfect art of a spectacular dawn and consider what our significance might be, in the day just ahead?

Did we seize that brand new day and do justice to its glorious beginning?