I am not a morning person. There. I said it. And although I weave fantasies about awakening before dawn, brewing my morning coffee and then enjoying its steam tickling my nose while watching a brilliant burst of light from the sun breaking through the cityscape beyond my back yard, it almost never happens. I even track it’s time through the Magic Hour app to get the best light for photographing it’s majesty, but it’s no use. It’s rarely ever to be.

The few times a year I do manage to catch the day’s awakening invariably happens while on vacation, usually in a game reserve on our biannual visits to my husband’s South African homeland, because waking with the dawn is what one does while on safari. The animals are sensible enough to sleep during the the hottest hours of the afternoon, forcing us humans to jump on their schedule.

Most recently, I caught a sunrise before taking an early taxi to the airport at the end of a beautiful visit to Monterrey, Mexico. My host, a dear friend, urged me to arise early each morning to see the sun’s amazing show, and although I’d awakened earlier than I almost ever do to get to work each day, cloudy skies had obscured the view until I was rewarded with this vista before catching that flight.

But sometimes, with the onset of daylight savings, I manage to catch a glimpse of the rising sun before the clocks fall back, a fluke created by mankind.

An extra yawn one morning in the springtime, an extra snooze one night in the autumn is all that we ask in return for dazzling gifts. We borrow an hour one night in April; we pay it back with golden interest five months later.— Winston Churchill, as quoted in David Prerau, Seize the Daylight: The Curious And Contentious Story of Daylight (2006).

How about you? Are you an early riser? Do you take the time to savor the sunrise over a hot beverage? Or are you more like me, only catching it’s beauty while traveling or as an accident a few times a year? As daylight savings approaches – one week away here in the United States – my opportunities to experience the sunrise later in morning multiplies  this week. I plan to rise just a little bit earlier to meet that magic moment – blissfully later than at any other time of the year – and enjoy a few more sunrises before the year comes to a close.