In photography, the term “golden hour” refers to the hour after sunrise and the hour before sunset. It’s that wondrous time when the sun is low and everything is aglow with warm, soft, yellow-y orange light. It’s the original Instagram filter. I don’t know what it is, but life just feels somewhat different in these golden hours.

In the morning, just after the sun rises, but before the noise of the day truly begins, the sun and her soft light welcomes me to a brand new day. It reminds me that indeed, this is a brand new day, and invites me to let go of yesterday, to exhale, to forgive, to be here now. It’s hard to feel angry, or anxious, or to carry yesterday’s disappointments or tomorrow’s fears when everything looks so incredibly beautiful in her delicate, fresh light. This light awakens the dreamer in me, encouraging me to look up and out from my little world to see a bigger, wider world with boundless opportunities. It’s a time when I can hear my own voice and the truth of my own heart the clearest. And most importantly, the reflection that the morning golden hour elicits often leads to a place of pure gratitude. Not a bad way to begin the day.

But then the sun climbs higher and the light she casts is brighter, harsher. The day unfolds and all the usual players (joy, chaos, frustration, productivity) perform their roles in varying intensities. There is a subtle hurried pace underlying almost everything while the ever-present tick-tock of time marches on.

And then the sun graces us once again with her enchanting, low golden light before yielding to the dark, dropping dollops of honey on the landscape before she goes. Time slows, chaos mellows, nature beckons. We typically head outside during this time, either to the park or to the playground, and marvel at the beauty of the light flitting through the trees and the ease of it all. Like the morning golden hour, there’s something about this light and the pace of life under it, that evokes a sense of calm, a bit of perspective and reflection, and deep gratitude. It is the perfect way to end the day.

I’ve always loved golden hours (in case that’s not clear) and consider them a special time when the veil between the physical and spiritual worlds is the most translucent. They are moments of alchemy and awe in otherwise “ordinary” days. The more I thought about these sacred hours and what they meant to me, the more I began to see them in the context of a lifespan rather than a single day. Maybe the golden hour of our lives is ten years (87,600 hours, to be exact), or twenty (175,200 hours), or two (17,520 hours). We likely have several golden “hours” in our lifetime, just as we have many dark periods, too.

As I consider my own life, especially this current phase, I know that I’m in the golden hours right now. I know that I’ll look back in my old age and remember these days as among the best of my life. These are the hours when our kid(s) are young and our parents are healthy; these are hours of witnessing the wide-eyed wonder and discoveries of a child; these are the hours of possibility, where we’ve made enough adult moves to feel solid but not enough to feel chained to our choices. These are moments of alchemy and awe in an otherwise “ordinary” life. And it is not lost on me.

So, I welcome you to my blog about these golden hours. I’ll be using this space to write about and process the wild ride of life, and in doing so, I hope to make meaning of it all. Sometimes it’ll be deep, sometimes it’ll be light, sometimes I’ll swear, but I promise you this: it’ll always be real, it’ll always be me. Thanks for being here and sharing this space with me.