Dawn

 　　I love mornings.

　　When I wake up, I walk downstairs alone, the gentle breeze seeming to lift even my skirt. Sometimes I stand by a tree, watching the sky through the quiet shade, watching that pure, moonlit white slowly be tinged with the orange-red of the rising sun. Watching this fills me with a sense of accomplishment, a feeling that time holds the promise of vibrant and beautiful moments.

　　And so, another day begins.

　　I love beginnings, I love setting off. Therefore, I love the morning, I love being someone who travels in the morning light.

　　The morning dew, as if freed from the embrace of the Virgin Mary, playfully hangs on the tips of leaves, yet remains untouched by the world. The mimosa, camphor, magnolia, plum, and osmanthus trees—all the trees are so maternal, cradling their full foliage of dew, silently bathed in the morning air.

　　I remember as a child, being urged by my parents to get up early, carrying my schoolbag to school. On the winding country paths, my hair would be covered in dew, and my toes would be damp with it. On the neighbor's fence, morning glory vines intertwine affectionately, peeking out half-open, purplish-red blossoms. I reach out and pluck one, and dewdrops splash and scatter. My fingertips and sleeves are covered in the cool dew.

　　Mornings are always new.

　　Even in autumn, the morning light and hues are new. Look, yesterday's grass was deep green, but this morning it's already turning yellow. Today's autumn grass is yellow, and by tomorrow morning, it will probably be a frosty red.

　　Downstairs, a crape myrtle has a long flowering period, blooming in early summer, like a celebratory occasion, blooming brightly until late autumn. Every morning as I pass by, I reach out and touch it, and new blossoms open gracefully in the dew. I have no idea when the older flowers wither. I thought this crape myrtle, from early summer to late autumn, was always in full bloom, forever eighteen years old. Because it always blooms, one overlooks that it is also fading.

　　I think, for a flowering tree, the only way to resist the fate of withering is to keep blooming.

　　Looking back on myself, I've been writing for over ten years now.

　　Is it a long time?

　　Ten years is enough for a few bamboo stalks to grow into a lush bamboo forest, enough for a passionate love to cool into a deserted, moonlit mountain. Ten years is enough for dandelion seeds to spread ten generations in the wind. Ten years is enough for rivers to cycle countless times in the atmosphere, from flowing water to clouds to snowflakes… and then back to rivers.

　　Ten years is enough for me to encounter countless strangers on street corners? In the dead of night, who have I forgotten and then remembered, only to gradually forget again?

　　Ten years is enough for the torrent of time to wash away so many human relationships and things.

　　But I've always been here, nestled between the pages of books. My deepest feelings are still found in writing. In writing, I'm like a person walking alone in the morning breeze. I won't say many things, for saying them would be vulgar. I only wish to continue walking alone in words like this.

　　This solitary journey seems to be a form of resistance. A resistance against time, a resistance against mediocrity.

　　Like the crape myrtle downstairs resisting decay, in the dawn light. Words, too, grant me a dawn-colored world, tranquil and vast, where I can let my imagination run wild.

　　I don't want to be a twilight lamp, however dazzling, however luxurious.

　　I want to be a traveler in the dawn light, the road long is best, so I can keep setting off.