A brief moment of beauty captured during a train journey.
That moment was brief and almost unnoticeable, yet that was exactly what made it so beautiful.
Train journeys can vary greatly depending on many circumstances, whether one enjoys them or not. If the train is overcrowded, people with heavy luggage squeeze through narrow aisles along occupied compartments in search of even a single free seat, and a tense, uncomfortable atmosphere fills the air. In such moments, one hardly enjoys the journey, even if they normally like trains and travel. But if you ride a half-empty train on a calm winter morning, the heating warms your frozen feet, and a softly snow-covered landscape flickers outside the window, the journey becomes much more pleasant, and you hardly feel the need to complain about having to wake up early. I, however, almost always complain about early mornings. I like sleeping — a lot — and when the annoying alarm wakes me from a dream and I have to get up while it is still dark, I do not smile much at the mirror while brushing my teeth.
This morning was similar, but in my mind I did not complain more than when getting up for school, because I actually woke up at the same time. Still, one does not want to leave a warm bed, so my reflection in the mirror greeted only sleepy eyes, a frowning brow, and messy hair. The darkness outside the window lingered until seven o’clock and slowly brightened only half an hour later. I boarded the train already in daylight, but only after it started moving did I notice that the sun was just about to rise, and my eyes brightened like a child seeing a Christmas tree.
What I never grow tired of is the Universe itself and its brilliance and creativity. There are countless moments when we can admire the Universe and Mother Earth, and now I want to focus on one of them reflected in my eyes today — the sunrise.
Sunrises and sunsets are among the most beautiful scenes the Universe gives us every day, which is perhaps why many people overlook them. But I love them, because I am someone who at twenty still sees the world with a child’s eyes and finds magic in moments others ignore.
One such moment inspired me to write this. The sun was rising, scattering golden rays across a thin layer of snow in the fields and on frozen branches. It colored the edges of clouds with warm tones and gave the otherwise clear sky its usual azure tint. Then the train entered tracks surrounded by a small forest, and the sunlight began to break through the gaps between the trees, streaming directly into the train window and onto my face. In that moment I held my breath and watched the moving scene in front of me in awe. Thanks to the surrounding shadows created by the trees, the rays seemed even stronger in contrast, and their golden glow swallowed the outlines of trunks, branches, and a few dried leaves that had not yet fallen since autumn. Suddenly I did not see snow anymore — it felt as if spring was blooming before my eyes, and I felt warmth not because of the flickering light on my face or the heating at my feet, but from within. That kind of warm feeling you only sense when you realize you are living a moment and quietly tell yourself that life is good. Suddenly, a deer jumped out from behind a tree and ran away from the noisy train, followed moments later by another. I watched their bouncing white tails until they disappeared, and shortly after, the train left the forest and the magic was gone. Winter returned.
Yet for a few more seconds I kept staring outside, enchanted by what I had just seen, trying to replay the scene in my mind, but it was no longer the same. Still, words began to form in my thoughts, the ones I am now writing down, and no matter how much I read, edit, and rewrite them, I cannot find a better way to describe that short and beautiful moment so that you could imagine it as vividly as I did. And it is impossible. But perhaps that is what makes nature so beautiful.