What the Sun Does to the Soul

In the morning, when light spills through the van windows, the air smells of salt and coffee.

Yasuo stretches, I open the door — and everything turns to gold.

A moment that asks for nothing.

Just to be.

Here, on the Costa de la Luz, the sun feels different.

Not louder, not brighter — but closer.

It has a way of moving through the skin,

into what we call the soul.

And there, it starts to quietly dissolve

the things we didn’t even know we were holding.

I feel my body slowing down,

as if it remembers what’s natural.

Here, the day isn’t ruled by clocks, but by light.

There are no fixed hours — only breathing in and out,

the rhythm of sun and sea.

Morning is for work while the sun is gentle.

Midday for stillness,

evening for flowing with the wind, the ocean, the life around you.

This is what it feels like when time becomes soft again.

Maybe that’s the true miracle of the South:

The sun doesn’t just warm the skin — it thaws something inside you.

Something that froze quietly through long winters.

I see it in the people here.

In their calm smiles,

in the easy tranquilo they say when you rush too much.

In workshops, on markets, by the shore —

everywhere the same message:

“Slow down. Life isn’t running away.”

And I think:

Maybe kindness is just another form of light.

Something that shines from within.

But there are also days when the sun hides.

When the sky turns grey,

the sea rises,

and the wind shakes the doors —

then I feel how the light within me is tested.

That’s when I learn whether I can stay warm, even without warmth.

The sun, I realize, is not a condition.

It’s a memory —

a reminder that ease is possible.

Not always outside,

but always somewhere within.

In the evenings, when the light softens

and the world turns to gold again,

I sit quietly and think

about what the sun does to the soul.

It doesn’t change the things themselves.

But it changes the way we see them.

The way we see ourselves —

in the mirror of light.

And perhaps that is its greatest gift:

To remind us that we are part of it.

That we can shine too —

even when the sky doesn’t.