Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I like to think of myself as a morning person.
Are you a morning person or a night owl?
I like to think of myself as a morning person.
During the predawn hours of near-stillness I feel like part of a select group. I enjoy the soft bird rustlings, broken by the raucous but muffled sound of our rooster.
It’s fun to get up in the dark and share conversation over a cup of coffee with my husband, a confirmed early-riser. It feels like getting a head start on the day, with a couple of extra hours to wake up and get organized.
When I used to commute to Palo Alto on the train, for half the year the commute would start in darkness. By sitting in a backward-facing seat, I could watch the sun rise over the southeastern hills. As the sky changed from black to gray to pale blue and yellow, it was easier to see that the sun wasn’t really rising, but our part of the world was moving towards a great source of light.
Most days the sky would also fill with stronger yellows and dramatic oranges as we moved closer to the sun’s full coverage of our part of the earth.
When my husband and I camp out in a historical setting, some of the best moments are early in the morning. Smoke from newly-lit fires mingles with the ground fog as our fellow re-enactors begin to stir, brew coffee, fry bacon.
People appear in combinations of historically correct garb and modern pj’s. Night caps (the woolly kind) top parkas and flannel-lined jeans as we fetch water, trek to the outhouse or fix breakfast in warm mainly-modern clothes rather than accurate 19th-century costumes. We make the rounds of each others’ camps to say hello, share food, and cozily work our way into the day.
At the coffee shop where I work, when I work the opening shift, I get up by three to arrive at 4:15, so we can open the place by 5:00. Serving the first few customers, usually regulars, also has that intimate feel of a private club.
Yes, I like to think of myself as a morning person, but actions speak louder than words.
I hate to get out of bed.
A lot of mornings at a historical gathering, I find it too chilly to bother with getting up and being friendly. My patient husband spoils me by bringing a cup of coffee into the tent to help warm me from the inside.
I don’t have too much trouble arriving on time for the morning shift, but the first few times I did it, by the end of the morning I felt like someone had hit me with a brick.
By contrast, it’s a lot easier for me to get up at 8:00 a.m. or so, start work late and then keep going. For me, this schedule is like getting almost two days for the price of one: my own day in the morning, and my work day in the afternoon and evening. I get tired, but it’s not that knocked-for-a-loop feeling.
Plus, I sort of identify with legendary night-owl types such as jazz musicians, rock stars, poets or bons vivants, even though I am none of these things: In my fantasies it is 2:00 a.m. in a smoky cabaret and I am hearing a once-in-a-lifetime piano riff while sharing deep thoughts with a fellow poetic soul.
So I guess while I like to think of myself as a morning person, I’m really not.
