Morning Meanderings

I turned over in bed and the clock blinked 4:07. AM. My mind has woken me up again, though in a surprisingly different way today. It was racing with thoughts, but not the panic stricken, surely I have missed something or forgotten to sign a paper or buy the pickles I had signed up to bring to preschool today kind of thoughts. No, these thoughts were free and inspiring and motivating. I rolled over, padded softy in bare feet into my office, careful not to awaken anyone, and turned on my computer. My right eye refused to adjust to the light on the screen in stark contrast to the darkened solitude surrounding me as the small digital clock on the lower right hand side of my screen read 4:27. I rubbed it patiently until my vision finally caught up with my mind. What in the world am I doing up at this hour?

I love to sleep. I have dreaded mornings for as long as I can remember. I think it stems back to my childhood when I first really discovered reading. I grew up in a small home with three brothers and a sister. My parents are both night owls, especially my Dad. He still stays up until all hours of the early morning to read. I was in the sixth grade when the "Babysitter's Club" series of books came out through the Scholastic book orders I received at school. I was starting to do a bit of babysitting myself for some families in the neighborhood and the first volume caught my eye, so I used some of my hard earned, $1 an hour earnings to purchase the book. Upon its arrival I stayed up late into the night devouring it. In such a full house, the late night hours were the only quiet ones I could find. In time I ordered and savored all thirty some odd books in the series. I remember reading until I fell asleep with a book on my chest, lamp light still blaring in the stillness. I would wake up often after midnight, put my book on my nightstand, turn off the light and go back to sleep. This relished ritual gave me much needed solace and respite, but wreaked havoc on my morning routine. I remember hitting the snooze button multiple times on my alarm clock. With each exhausted expression of fatigue I created another justification for an additional seven minutes of sleep. "I'll lay here and pick out my outfit in my mind. That will save me time." Seven more minutes of peace. Horrible interruption. "I don't need to blow dry my hair this morning. I'll just let it air dry." That heavenly seven returning. Annoyance revisited. "I can just pull my hair back this morning." And on and on until I would find myself grabbing cold toast as I ran out the door, late again to school, hoping I had on matching clothes and that I had remembered to brush my teeth. All because of that book I couldn't put down the night before. The nightly cycle continued year after year until I vehemently dreaded mornings.

As I grew older, especially during my college years, I struggled to find the time to accomplish all that was demanded of me. I read several books which said to utilize the early morning hours of your day. They were the most productive since they were when you would be the most 'fresh'. HA! Fresh was hardly the word I would use for myself at that inhuman hour of the day, but I was willing to try. I have vivid memories of dragging myself out of my warm, soft bed on a cold, winter morning in the west at 5:00 AM to walk in the darkness over the music building on my college campus. I had a requirement for my piano performance class to practice a minimum of three hours a day. I would have much rather practiced late at night, when my brain was used to the creative process, but unfortunately I was a lowly freshman and had been given the very last pick of times for use of the practice rooms in the basement of the music building. The only way I could find a solid three hour block each day was to practice from 6-9 in the morning. I never did get used to it. Often after working hard for a couple of hours, I would lay my head down on the piano just to 'rest my eyes' for a minute, only to have a more senior student knock on my door and awaken me just in time for my 9:00 class. Freshness? More like groggy, sloggy, bleary eyed freshman. I kept at it all that first year, but never looked forward to the time. I never once bounced out of bed, anxiously awaiting my time of solitude. I always dreaded it. Every morning.

I was grateful for the following year when my slightly increased seniority and acceptance into the music program granted me much more favorable practice room hours, and I quickly abandoned the hair brained idea of early morning anything. I then realized one of the incredible advantages of university life was the ability to create my own schedule. I never again scheduled a class before 10 AM and resumed my late night habits. I would often go running at 10 at night just to activate my brain and then come home to write papers until 2 in the morning. It was wonderful and I lived that way throughout the remainder of my university career.

Those college years passed, marriage came, then first time motherhood found me feeling that returning sense of increased responsibility accompanied by decreased ability. After taking care of my beautiful newborn all day long, I was too exhausted to stay up late anymore. I didn't know how other mothers even found the time to shower and do the dishes, let alone pursue any personal interests. I was feeling dumpy and disorganized, so I reached back for that promised oasis of time in the early morning and started setting my alarm to get me up before the baby each day. I rediscovered my love hate relationship with my alarm clock as I would drag myself up to shower and get ready each day, leaving some extra time for cleaning. But as time progressed, the allure of that extra hour of sleep overcame any vanity I had acquired at that point and I gave it up. It hardly felt worth losing sleep over being perfectly coiffed for my infant and I certainly wasn't motivated to bounce out of bed for housework. The adage had failed me again. Really? THIS was the great secret?

I tried it again sporadically for running, gardening, housework, and reading, all to no avail. None of the anticipated rewards outweighed the immediate benefit of increased sleep, so the grand ambitions would falter and my love affair with the snooze button continued. I concluded finally that I was simply not a morning person. I never would be, so I quit trying.

Then I started writing again. I have vivid memories of English class my Junior year of high school. Our teacher emphasized writing and constantly assigned us essays to write. That was back in the dinosaur ages before the internet and when most people didn't even have a computer in their home. My Dad owned a small business in our little town, so I would go up in the evenings after his work day and write my papers there on his computer. I distinctly remember staring out the window just behind the computer into the shadowed stillness and feeling a kind of blissful abandon with the silent darkness. Nobody was there to interrupt my thoughts. I could leave my busy, noisy home and find a soundless oasis where my ideas could flow freely. I relished that time.

Only recently have the words come to me again in the stillness. Poems have awakened me in the early hours, their meter and vocabulary calling me out of sleep, begging me to put them to paper before they disappear back into the sanctity of the quiet night. Lyrics linger in that half awakened state between sleep and consciousness singing to me. They float and find themselves uniting into verses, song structures, reminding me that unless I arise and record them, they will travel back into the creative chasm from whence they came. Words and ideas haunt me kindly but insistently until finally articulated. The promised island of solitude has finally found its way to me, or perhaps I to it. I realize now that the soul awakens early not by intrusion of alarm, or by outside imposed direction. The mind and the heart can only overcome the overarching needs of the physical body when compelled by a deep longing. A connection to self that requires awareness of innate desire. The sun will only rise on the soul in stillness.

The key to finding this silent island oasis is not productivity, it is creativity. What stirs your soul? What resonates deep within you in a way you can neither explain nor deny? Where does your mind travel while your hands are occupied in mundane, routine tasks? What connects you to yourself and the divine within you? Release expectations you feel placed on you by others, by society, by your former self and listen. Just listen. Listen in the silence for the beating of your own heart. It will speak to you. It will teach you. It will lead you to the haven of creativity that is uniquely yours. Then the mornings will call to you and beckon you into the stillness. For there is where brilliance is born.