It’s just after 5:00 a.m. After taking my turn at a few rounds of various word games, I ate a very small breakfast of oatmeal left over from a day or two ago, then finished washing last night’s dinner dishes, which I should have done last night. More than an hour has passed since I gave up on going back to sleep. Admitting defeat, I opted to leave the warmth of the bed, hoping I could elude the thoughts that kept me awake by otherwise occupying myself. It worked, though the issues on my mind are just cloaked differently in the dim light and pale shadows of a slow-to-awaken house.
Early mornings, long before daylight, this house looks different to me than it does late at night. I turn on the lights in the kitchen and in my study, but the glow they cast early in the morning seems different from the glow those same lights cast at night. I suppose it’s just a matter of perspective and my frame of mind. There’s no difference in what I see, just in how I see it.
And so it is with the thoughts roused me from what had been a sound sleep. The first time I looked at the clock, it was after 1:30 a.m. I tried to go back to sleep, and perhaps I succeeded, but I looked at the clock again just after 2:00 a.m., then again around 2:45 a.m., then again sometime after 3:00 a.m. Finally, I relented at 4:03 a.m.
Coffee is best very early in the morning, I think, because there’s no competition, nothing to distract from the sharpness and strength of the freshly-brewed cup. I feel an odd kinship with coffee early in the morning, as if the coffee and I were in silent conversation, offering mutual assurances we are here for one another. I wonder if I am alone in that decidedly strange sensation of communion with the cup.
I suppose my kinship with my coffee is just another way of facing the demons of the day, whatever they are. Maybe I am using my coffee as an anesthetic for whatever pain and discomfort I bring into the new day.
Early morning thoughts can be odd. Odd, indeed.
I know those middle of the night, early morning awakenings so well. Instead of counting sheep to fall back to sleep, I count haiku syllables and write poems in my head. It doesn’t make me fall back to sleep, but it is entertaining! My first cup of strongly brewed English Breakfast tea is a delicious thing, both contemplative and energizing.
Loved reading you twilight and predawn thoughts, John. I’ve often followed a similar pattern. And your silent conversation with your early morning coffee…ahh….no, you are not alone in that kinship, and strange sensation of communion with the cup, which I consider a lovely one. And yes, it is a way to ease into the unknown of the impending day.