Early to rise

Today, morning didn’t break so much as crumble into being. The clouds are a thick meringue cap fitted tightly over the sky, coaxed into a dull glow by the sunrise. I’m in a time of transition over here, as the blog silence attests. Among many changes, I start a new work schedule very soon, which requires me to rise by 3:30, to pedal away from the house at 4:00 (yes, AM). It’s an obscene, absurd hour to start one’s day, particularly when livestock are not involved. But what I do for a paycheck comes with, as I’ve said before, strange hours and even stranger people. So this morning I set my alarm for far earlier than an average day off should start. I’m trying to mitigate the shock to my system by changing a few days ahead of time.

I aimed for 6:00.

I managed 7:00.

Baby steps. There’s a lesson in kindness and self-forgiveness, for me anyway, in damn near everything I do. Taking an extra hour to sleep on a dark, cloudy day off is not a moral failing. I’m learning these things, if ever-so-slowly.

It’s become part of our cultural cachet to collectively detest mornings. We all make the same jokes about coffee and snooze buttons and having a case of the Mondays so often that they’ve become fact. Poor morning–she gets such a bad rap, and for what? Because we all stayed up too late watching the decidedly un-funny local news, followed by a few mostly un-funny monologues and tepid celebrity interviews? Because we traded one more late-nite Bud Lite for witnessing the sunrise?

As with most of my fellow Modern humans, I’ve had a long and conflicted relationship with mornings, stemming directly from my long and conflicted relationship with sleep. I stay up too late, and hunger after more shuteye.  (An interesting thing: Ayurveda teaches that different times of day–among many other things–are governed by different active principles or biologic energies, called doshas.  The hours of 10-2, AM and PM, are when Pitta–the Fire principle–is dominant. Ever stayed up past 10 and then suddenly felt too awake to go to sleep? Next thing you know, it’s 2 o’clock, and you’re wondering where the time went… That’s Pitta, and I’ve fallen into that specific trap more times than I can count.) I stay up too late, and in college I developed a passionate love affair with my snooze button. That demonic little device propagated many more bad habits–I’d hit it once or twice or ten times, then roll out of bed with just enough time to brush my teeth, clatter down the fire escape, and slide into class right at 8. Breakfast went out the window, as did any sort of gentle morning ritual. Starting the day became a frenzied, fraught thing, not a smooth transition from sleep to wake. It’s a disservice I continued showing myself for the next decade or so.

Add to that years and years of walking around feeling like I had lead-lined bones and a cranium full of cotton–all connected to a deranged thyroid and gut–and you’ve got a gal who loves her some sleep and is rarely treated right by it. Sleep was like an abusive ex–always so attractive, so promising. Occasionally delivered the goods–and when the goods were good, they were gooooooooood–but more often served up cold shoulders and insults and dark circles under the eyes. We had illicit quickies, sleep and I–I would leave the office for lunch, but instead of eating, I’d park the car somewhere quiet and sleep for an hour. So I had lots of little mornings–unhappy awakenings tearing me from a sleep I couldn’t get enough of to a day I wasn’t really prepared for. When disturbed physiology and bad habits collide, that snowball can pick up more speed than you’d imagine.

So I’ve laid down quite the foundation for being yet another Not A Morning Person. But here’s the thing: I love early mornings. I love the sunrise, and the change that comes over the world when it happens. The quiet giving way in increments–one birdsong, then two, then ten. The last fading to pastel at the horizon, just before the yellow yolk of the sun goes to work on dew or frost or mist. I love mornings. I’ve just never learned to love getting up so I can actually experience them.

Today was a start, if a meager one. I pulled myself out from under the weight of quilts and down, and watched two inky crows skim across the dull pearl of the sky. It was a simple, silent wonder, a visual haiku that instantly reminded me why the alarm clock can be my friend, not my archenemy. I zipped up another layer against the cold house, and said, “Good morning” to myself. It will take some convincing, some practice, but I’m hoping that I can say those words to myself every day and mean it. Sure, I will probably always rather be burrowed into the warm den of my bed instead of riding over the cold, pre-dawn streets of this town, but I’m trying to steer clear of grumbling and griping territory, and just watch for those crows, look at that sky.