If hope is the thing with feathers, and happiness is a bowl of cherries, then grace might actually be a girl with crayons on a beach at dawn. That’s what I discovered in the weeks and months that followed a string of devastating losses—the deaths of my niece, my best friend, my mother, and my father.  

Driven by insomnia to wander the shores of my island home at dawn, I eventually began the daily practice of greeting the sunrise with a playful purpose.  To distract myself from ruminating thoughts, I began to focus on what actually unfolded before me.  I began the quest to find—in the sky, the sea, or the shoreline—every color in a big box of crayons I found in an old keepsake bin. 

  I found them all.  And in that quest, I found myself.  

John Muir wrote, “In every walk with nature one receives far more than one seeks.”  I have found this to be true.  I sought relief from debilitating grief, but this beach at dawn offered me so much more.  All I needed to do was show up and pay attention.  

Crayon Dawn is my testimonial, my humble expression of gratitude for all that I have learned and continue to learn about myself and my island home. 

13th-century Persian poet Rumi gave me my marching orders over a decade ago—"The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you—don’t go back to sleep.” 

I’m awake.  

  It’s a beautiful day.