---
title: "The Stillness Before Sunrise"
date: 2025-08-02T05:00:00-06:00
author: "David Campbell"
tags: ["reflection", "travel", "birthday", "Yelapa", "Mexico"]
categories: ["Personal", "Morning Thoughts"]
---

![Twilight in Yelapa](/images/yelapa-morning-painting.png)
*Impressionist-style view from Casa Flourish, Yelapa, Mexico – August 2, 2025*

There’s something about waking before the world stirs that feels a little like stealing time. This morning, on the southern curve of Yelapa’s bay, I found myself wrapped in that kind of stillness—the kind you can’t manufacture, only discover.

Casa Flourish sits quietly above the water, nestled into the hillside like it’s been waiting for centuries to host mornings just like this. The sky was still dark when I slipped out of bed, long before anyone else in the house stirred. I made my way to the palapa roof, coffee in hand, and took in the moment. There were no distractions—just the rhythm of the water, the gentle clink of moored fishing boats, and the occasional distant crow of a rooster reminding the jungle it was almost time to wake up.

No phone buzzing. No tasks demanding attention. Just the soft tapping of my own fingers on the keyboard and the sense that, for now, the world had granted me a bit of grace.

Fifty-two years. That number feels both big and small. Big in the sense that I’ve packed a lot of living into it—challenges, victories, quiet triumphs no one else would notice. Small in the sense that mornings like this make me realize how much I still want to see, feel, and write down before the sun fully rises.

As light began to trace the outline of the bay, those little boats came into clearer view—just sitting there, floating in place, waiting for the day’s work. It felt like a metaphor I didn’t want to over-explain. You know it when you feel it.

Today, I won’t rush it. Not the morning. Not the years ahead. I’ll let this birthday start slow, wrapped in salt air and birdsong, with time to think and room to breathe.

Because sometimes, the best gift is simply *stillness*.

---
*Written from Casa Flourish, Yelapa, Mexico — August 2, 2025.*
