Morning!

Some brightness at holiday time!

Despite whatever mess or confusion, whatever heartache, I went to bed with, morning gives me a clean slate. When I get up, around 5 or 5:30, morning comes to me with optimism in hand, with promise, with a sense of rebirth. Sins are forgiven—at least temporarily.

Morning gives me clarity—especially since I quit drinking five years ago. I can see for miles.

I feel years—decades—younger. Morning is my fountain of youth. Don’t ask me to lift anything heavy, though.

I do need a cup of bitter-strong, iron-melting coffee. I’m not Thoreau who said the only stimulant he took was morning air. No, no, I need high-octane java, black as tar, intense and, to many others who have tried it, vile. I need that in my veins.

I need you.

Then birds start singing. The sun rises. What more do you want?

I know some people hate mornings. Stay away from me, they say, or imply, with their baleful look and body language. They do everything but snarl. Some do.

Not me. I’ve got a smile on my face for the whole human race.

It doesn’t matter if it’s winter and it’s dark as night outside when I get up and go to my desk. It’s still morning. Everything is being born, darkness or not. Nothing that happens has ever happened before.

Morning is trustworthy. It brings a clarity that makes it all but impossible to sneak some writing by myself that is lazy or dishonest. And, believe me, I try. Morning shines a you-can’t-fool-me light on that effort.

At a certain point, I sense morning losing its vitality. As Brendan Behan said, “The morning is always a good time. Till about eleven o’clock when it begins to feel its age.”

Brendan Behan working—in the morning?

Then, suddenly, like some specter, it’s gone. I’ll resist the urge to write metaphorically about the similarity to life itself, but I suppose I’ve just done that.

Morning gone, I have to make my way through the day, take whatever there is, just live. As with all of us, it’s not always easy. The day gets older, weakens. I feel that way, too.

Until, hours later, having stumbled along the day’s path, piled up mistakes and misses, chalked up fresh regrets and roads not taken, and hopefully moments to be proud of, made a few people laugh, the time arrives when, at last, I can crawl under the sheets and begin, once again, my sleepy journey toward dawn.