Worth Getting Up For

(Sunday, Nov. 1, 9:00 a.m., from Washington, DC)

“Not a morning person.”  One year, in about 9^th grade, my daughter decided this would be her Hallowe’en costume.   As a very non-crafts-y, non-seamstress type of mother, I was not likely to be whipping up an exact replica of a character from the musical “Wicked,” and Macrina’s creativity was not well satisfied with a something purchased at Wal-Mart.  So as was often the case, late on the evening of the 30^th, she resorted to assembling something unique from her own closet and growing makeup kit.   That year, she came down the stairs on Hallowe’en morning in a blue and white striped bathrobe, shod in fluffy slippers.  She had her hair up in two messy braids.  A smear of blue and brown eye color created deep shadows under her eyes.  She grabbed a coffee cup, and pinned a sign on the lapel of her robe that read “not a morning person.”   The costume was perfect.  And the costume was a perfect replica of me (sans curlers, but without any need for the makeup.)

Anyone who knows me well knows that I am NOT a morning person.  When left to my own devices (which means, not required by job or society to get up at a particular hour), I will go to bed between midnight and 1 a.m., and rise between 9 and 10.  I am a happy 10-hours-of-sleep person.  8 hours makes me feel spiky.  6 hours makes me incompetent.  And any time my sleep is terminated before the sun comes up makes me downright evil.

The weather is a big factor, too.  In my teen years I chose to think of my morning agonies as a kind of 19^th century-style romantic angst when the New England weather brewed up dark clouds and the trees wept for days.  Romantic angst had the consolation of high drama.   But as the years went on, I realized that angst didn’t cut it when one is required to get up for work – or to feed a baby – or to drive a child to school.  There were days when I literally had to hurl the lower half of my body out of bed, hope my feet hit the floor first, and get upright before the lights in my brain were turned on.  Over the years I have learned to cope with this mismatch between my brain chemistry and the demands of modern civilization.  But I don’t willingly witness the dawn’s early light if I can help it!

So this morning was a pleasant anomaly.  Setting the clocks back for the end of Daylight Savings Time helped a bit, but I was up – and surprisingly cheerful – at 5:30 this morning to accompany my spouse to Washington, DC, where he is preaching for All Saints’ Sunday at Reformation Lutheran on Capitol Hill.  The drive down from our home in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania wasn’t much fun, as it drizzled all the way.  But I discovered, as I often do when forced to be conscious in the hours before 9:00, that there is a world of delights to be had in the early morning – even early morning in the rain:

Walking through just the slightest veil of rain from Union Station to the Capitol, I find my spirits lifting as I breathe in the cool, moist air.  The trees are mottled grass-green and wheat-yellow, and glistening in the heavy mist.  The sky is a gossamer gray-yellow.  Washington’s marble buildings rise up, dove colored, above green lawns strewn with brown leaves.  The asphalt shines like a woman’s patent leather purse.

It is Sunday and there is almost no traffic.  This feels like a miracle.  The streets are quiet.  The few cars go by with a muted shush.  It’s possible to cross the confusing diagonal streets without taking your life in your hands.

There is a Starbuck’s on Pennsylvania Avenue at 3^rd Street with a blissfully quiet 2^nd floor.  No piped-in music, no talk.  Just the occasional sound of newspapers rustling and laptop keyboards softly clucking.  I am seated at a window where I can watch people and their umbrellas passing by below, through a screen of emerald and gold Maple leaves.

My simple things are not everyone’s of course.  My favorite things are mostly of the urban variety.  I have my Venti black iced tea (unsweetened).  I have the New York Times (yes, I know, I should be reading the Washington Post here in DC like a native.  But these are my favorite things).  I have an electric outlet to plug in my laptop.  I have Wifi.  I have time to think, and a quiet, well-lit corner to think in.  I have a whole hour to myself, in which no one knows exactly where I am, no one needs anything from me, and I can be my own companion.

And in an hour I have another short walk to take through the silvered streets, where a beloved person awaits me.  I will sing hymns, and pray with good people, and listen to my husband preach (which almost always brings me to tears), and then we will go have lunch somewhere.  We will probably hold hands.  Solitude is wonderful, and all the more wonderful when you know you are loved, and there is someone so happy to see you when you are ready to be companioned again.

Maybe it’s a midlife thing, but I no longer need the Sturm und Drang of morning agonies or the late-night drama that I thought was so exciting in my teens and twenties.  Give me these simple urban pleasures.  An hour of solitary bliss, bounded on each end by seasoned love.  I will get up in the morning – any day – for this!