My September mornings at Boston College have, so far, all begun with the loud, incessant beeping of trucks unloading by Walsh Hall. Then, the morning light will pierce the gap between my curtain and bed, dyeing my room with shifting shades of gold.
I’ll brush my teeth, grab my slides, and drift into the “kitchen,” where some of my roommates cook breakfast, while others embrace lingering sleep. Soon, I find myself on our sofa with a coffee in my hand, watching orange chase away the indigo hues of night.
Our Gasson-facing window frames the bustle of BC’s administrators and students as some rush while others stroll leisurely toward Hillside Cafe.
A few students sport athleisure attire on their way to the gym, while others don suits, primed for the Career Fair. Dozens of individual stories weave themselves together into the tapestry I see through my window.
I love observing those few hours after dawn, watching how and when people wake. I notice if they have a pep in their step or drag their feet. I wonder how people across the world welcome the new day.
From my experience, San Juan and Boston are perpetually buzzed. Both cities seem to be jittery from a strong morning brew.
I remember savoring breakfast at our west-facing window in San Juan while newborn light reflected off the puddles left from a rainy night. In Puerto Rico, mornings never linger for long. While I’d still be blinking sleep from my eyes, my father had already run eight miles, racing to beat the sun. On the way to school, I’d spot squinting stragglers returning from their own morning runs, while the rest of us beeped our way through traffic, swept into the daily tides.
Perhaps it’s just the season in Boston. When winter strikes, and even the sun itself seems to beg for five more minutes, I can assure you the amount of people milling to and from the gym will dwindle.
But under year-long Caribbean summers, Puerto Ricans seem eager to escape the midday heat, and begin their days much earlier. The same daily rhythm echoes in other warm-weather cities, from Sydney to Jakarta.
Located in the southern half of Morrocco, Marrakech—often called the Daughter of the Desert—holds onto the night’s chill before the day’s heat returns. As if the breeze itself presses people back into bed, the city wakes slowly, ushering in the sun with quiet reverence.
The first of five daily calls to prayer, the Fajr, rings out before sunrise. Yet, even awake, Marrakech remains still. The red buildings rest in the soft violet of dawn, their usual clamor held at bay, as if the Desert’s Daughter herself chooses to honor slumber a little longer. Once the prayer ends, the silence stretches—generous and deliberate—before the city stirs.
During my visit in January, I’d relish in this comfortably heavy silence, until it was welcomely broken by a صباح الخي or Bonjour, a small reminder that a good morning is so pivotal that even strangers feel compelled to bless them upon you. A morning is not just the beginning of a day, but an offering, a chance to rewrite what comes next.
And so, I encourage you to start at the beginning. No matter where you wake, whether it is to the incessant beeping or tricks, or screeching macaws, or hypnotizing call to prayer, morning greets us all the same. It presses the same question: how will you begin?
Set the alarm. Set out your clothes. Make your bed and sip (or chug) your coffee. Savor your breakfast instead of swallowing it whole between emails. Sign up for a 9 a.m., and actually go.
Step outside and feel the air on your skin—humid, salty, dusty, whatever your city gives you— let that be your first greeting of the day.
I believe that whatever you choose to do in those opening hours, no matter how small, colors everything that follows. A rushed morning tends to bleed into a rushed afternoon. A calm one can quiet even the loudest day.
Here’s to a new semester and to new beginnings—to the clatter of coffee mugs, to hurried footsteps echoing across campus, to yawns and laughter and truck beeps. The world, vast and jittery and waiting, is yours for the taking, if only you rise with the sun.
