Up Early

It’s for the dogs

Really, it’s for the dogs.

Pepper is 17 and wanders around the bedroom clicking his nails on the floor. If that doesn’t get my attention, he wags his tail which pounds on the wall. “Thump, thump, thump” I hear his message “hey lady wake up”.

4:30 is too early by far. I can manage 5:30.

After the dogs have gone out, had their biscuits, and resettled into their beds, the early morning is mine. In the summer I sat outside on the patio watching the sun come up. With my coffee. And my journal. And my iPad.

As the weeks moved further toward the dark I would light a candle outside and write in the near dark. It is my favorite time of day. I did this until it was just too dark and too cold.

The early mornings are mine outside or inside. Inside, I go into the room of my own with the twin bed, bookshelves, and homemade art on the walls. The pirate my nephew drew when he was 6, the flower arrangement my daughter painted when she was 7. There are paintings friends and my husband created. There are funny family photos I have framed, and a poster of “Girl with the Pearl Earring” that I have had since I was a teenager.

If I can’t be outside, it is in this room where I write when I am up early. Stories and thoughts in my journal, recording them as I have been doing for 40 years. I type out my essays, stories, and ideas. They are about personal history, reflections and thoughts, current and from the past.

I never used to be a morning person. Now I love the quiet darkness of being up early as I watch the day develop with all the hopes, dreams, and fears that are to come. Most everything is unsettled in the world, what once was certain is uncertain. What we thought was guaranteed is not.

What is guaranteed is that Pepper will wake up early and wag his tail for me to get up.

I will continue to get up early and to enjoy my first coffee in the dark. I will continue to write the words and hope I can put them in an order that creates meaning in my little corner of the world.