Three (or so) thoughts on . . . owning the morning

Six a.m.:  it belongs to me, this time does.  If you too are a morning person, then you probably know exactly what I mean. And if you're not a morning person, then thank you: it's people like you who make 6 a.m. into a time that I own, a time that's my own.

When I was a teenager, I discovered the magic of having the house to myself early in the morning. I would wake early, read the newspaper and wander the house in contented solitude, and then return to bed for a nap just as the other people in the house were waking. It drove my mom nuts; she was sure I was up to some devious scheme, no doubt, but I was really just relishing wide open spaces and familiar places, without having to share those with anyone.

We have cordless blinds, and opening them each morning
has become a part of my daily stretching routine.

Raising kids, I learned anew to rise and appreciate the quiet before the rowdy boys would get up.  Indeed, one of my most effective ways of convincing the boys to change their manic late-night behavior was to threaten to get them up with me in the morning: I probably did this once for each child, and after that, the mere threat of Morning-Mama time was enough to inspire change.

Reading in bed, with my coffee nearby.  
Hoy en día leo Isaías antes de encender la computadora. 

For more than a decade now, I've run three days per week in the morning with a similarly morning-minded friend.  On these days, I'm not so much wandering the house alone, but as I walk the kilometer from my home to hers, I have the streets to myself. There are almost no cars, and very few pedestrians. The streets are mine.  

This past fall, I rearranged my running and other morning moments to teach calculus at 6 AM to students in Shanghai, for whom it was 6 p.m.  I volunteered for this time slot because I knew I was one of the few people who would be willing to rise that early, but I do have to say that I missed my morning me-time.  There are people who retire who say what they love the most about it is never having to set an alarm again, but I think what I look forward to when I retire is to be able to own this precious morning time even more completely--- to have the house to myself, to be able to wander and read alone for a few hours without having to devote that time to preparing for something else like heading into the office, to own the morning all the more.