A silver lining of my COVID isolation is this shift to early morning swims. As soon as I drive through the intersection of Buchanan and the freeway entrances, I begin to get excited about what I will find at the water. What will the clouds, the light, the wind, the colors be like? It’s never not true that every day at the water is different, but it’s somehow even more true in the early mornings. The quiet, the calm, the absence of other distractions. The display the birds put on as they shout out their aliveness to the morning. 

But mostly it’s the light that captivates me at this time of day. The way the water acts as a canvas upon which the dawn displays its wonders. When I arrive there is always a kind of glow, the anticipation of the coming morning simmering in the bay like the first embers of a fire.

As day unfolds, layers of light are woven into the water, tangling up in the waves until it feels like I’m swimming in a pool of illumination. Even this morning when the skies were stormy and gray, dark clouds heavy with rain, the light manages to push its way through, lighting up the water so that it’s like rivers of silver ribbons rolling toward the shore.

Despite my valiant efforts, I wasn’t able to capture the magic with my camera (the video did a slightly better job), so you will have to take my word for it.