Almost every morning, I wake before my shadow and spend 2 hours without it.

I pondered this on this morning, awaking and, placing my foot on the ground, not required to be anywhere yet wishing to get to the day’s activities. There are fewer people at this hour – enough to notice, to watch, as they trudge with their own meaning, slaves to what they must do to get what they must have, slaves to what they must do to get what they don’t need. Some move with purpose belied by their step, target blindness robbing them of the world around as they focus on the world ahead. Few take their time, one stops to dissuade the stray dogs at his heels. A world awakens, the first bits of dawn bend through the atmosphere, something so many do not understand from secondary school physics – it mutes the darkness casually, awaking the birds from their slumber – the owls go silent, the passerines awaken with vigor.

The cars start passing more frequently. There is a rhythm that reaches a crescendo soon, an expanse of noise that mutes the world as it was, that mutes us as we were.

The shadow shows up, the expectations, the definition of what we are by what we aren’t – to mock us throughout the day.

Those that do not wake without their shadows cannot see this, blinded by light, staring into the sun instead of what it reflects on. On what we reflect on.