Sentimental Short: “The Sun of Christmas Day”
My body’s grown cold enough to wake me. The clear plastic window of my cocoon tent is dark. There are no stars. I sense this is the hour just before dawn, when the darkness is complete, when the cold bites.
Fishing in deep pockets, I pull out my phone. The unnatural white-blue glow illuminates my fog of breath, precious warmth leaving my body. It’s 4:50 a.m. Last night, when I pitched my camp up on this ridge, the weather app predicted temps would drop to 25 degrees at 5 a.m. It’s my tenth year spending Christmas Eve on this ridge, fifteen miles out in the wilderness behind my Appalachian homestead. I’m not bothered by the extreme temperature, but I’m tempted to remain cocooned in my sleeping bag and tent, protected from the teeth of the cold.
“Not what I came here for, though.”
I crawl out of my nest and strap on hiking boots before unzipping the tent. My camp on the ridge is near the summit. A sharp breeze picks up as I roll my gear and store it away in my pack. It’s easier to do without gloves, but my fingers are growing numb. I squat near my firepit and retrieve my canteen from where I buried it next to the embers. I covered my firepit with dirt last night, but I can still feel a little heat coming up from it. Underneath the dirt, I know it’s hot enough to bring a cozy fire to life. I could have a hot breakfast now, instead of waiting to make food after my morning hike as I’d planned. Again, I feel the pull of comfort.
“If I wanted to sleep in and be cozy, I would’ve stayed home this year,” I tell myself firmly.
I don’t have water to spare on the fire. I squat and thaw out my fingers over the coal-baked earth, then pull on my insulated gloves. Heaving my pack onto my back, I survey the last leg of incline in the lifting, pre-dawn darkness. There will be no going back once I leave this spot. A sunrise over the mountain peak might be just as brilliant as the view of the valley. I don’t know, because I’ve always made it to the summit in time for the Christmas sunrise. It’s the gift I’ve given myself each year for almost a decade, ever since that dark Christmas Eve when I thought I couldn’t bear another year rolling in.
“I’m not giving up,” I say, with the urgency of conviction. “Not this year. Not ever.”
Putting one foot in front of the other, I climb. Rocks crunch underfoot. The silent morning grows lighter. Then, as I’m passing under some scrubby pines along a narrow piece of ground, the birds awake. Sharp cries of cardinals precede a flash of red. The snappy, warbling of brown-coated sparrows greets me as I trudge past them. The mourning doves break off their soft song to flee, crying nasal protests.
It is only a short walk to the summit, but the almost vertical path brings a welcome burn to my numb legs. I can feel the heat in my body grow as the blood surges through muscle and the stinging breath enters and leaves my lungs. White puffs of air escape my mouth. My nostrils burn in the cold. But my eyes are wide open. Grassy scrub along my path is specked with bright diamonds of dew. The rocks covered in moss and lichen look sage with the knowledge of ages. Tall pines bend in the breeze, whispering secrets. This quiet, austere world is timeless. Its nature is bound up in the rule of life itself—that what is decreed exists, and what death grinds down is not defeated but rises anew. As it was, it ever will be. This peak is the chapel in which I worship on Christmas Day.
When I reach the summit, the familiar place beckons me. It is a rock outcropping which I must scramble over a cluster of boulders to reach. But my climb is rewarded by an unbroken view of the mountainside falling away below my perch, sweeping down and down, all the way to the blue-green valley. I settle in, opening the cap of my canteen to sip at hot coffee and exhale puffs of white. The tip of my nose grows damp with the steam and tingles. The cold reigns supreme. But, with the experience of many such mornings, I know its defeat is near. The sun is about to rise.
While I wait, I remember the first time I came to this place. It was something I did on impulse, knowing that if I didn’t get out of that cabin in the middle of that sleepless night, I wouldn’t live to see many more sunrises. Despair would make sure of that. My body had been weak, and the cold a frightening foe. But putting my flesh into submission, enduring the bite of a truly impersonal force which threatened to end my existence, gave me a new perspective on suffering. The battle of my mind became less immediate in the midst of my battle to keep warm.
Despair is a distant memory now. But this Christmas ritual yields surprising revelations, year after year.
When my coffee’s gone, there remain a few moments before the light breaks. A sunrise comes so gradually, you can almost miss that first moment. The sky grows bright. Colors wash across the horizon, seeping outward, melding into the blue of day. Before you know it, brilliant rays emerge and blind you. The sun himself, like a sphere of molten fire, appears afterward. The best sunrises are when he rises swollen, wearing garments of red. In his presence, those first brilliant rays grow thin. Their power is nothing compared to his.
The light warms my face. Cold recedes. As the sun rises higher, I can feel its powerful beams heating my clothes wherever the light touches. The boulder feels cold underneath me by comparison. I pull off my gloves and massage my numb cheeks. I feel content, like I’ve just woken from a healing slumber. My happiness is complete. Whatever things have been swimming in my thoughts, the cares I bore up onto this ridge in the night, now melt away.
It’s a long walk home. But filled with the strength of a new Christmas Day, I’m ready for it.
