The Trick.
I’m normally not very good at waking. Alarm clocks fail as soon as my unconscious hands learn to disable them, I mumble and describe my dreams to bed-mates with no recollection the next day, and I often perform sloppy addition and subtraction of minutes in the morning to absolve myself of sleeping in.
There was a period though, during the summer before last, when I rose early and eagerly from bed each day. I was wrenching at a bike shop in San Jose which was about a half an hour’s ride from my mom’s house. For forty-one days straight I would get up, shower, make breakfast, and leave the house before anyone else had woken up. I came home tired, hungry, dirty, and satisfied.
The guest room of my mom’s house had a large window that faced out over the backyard. I remember often waking minutes before my alarm went off, and watching the sun rise over the Northern foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The whole room slowly filled with light, and I was awake. I look back on that brief period as one of intense personal productivity.
As seasonal shades of gray descend upon Northern California, I’ve found myself less than motivated to get out of bed and on to my bike in the morning hours before work. For the past few weeks I’ve considered the battleship gray of the morning sky too heavy to move under, and have instead resigned myself to sleeping in as late as I can.
But this morning I tried something different. I went to bed before nine last night, and was able to rise from bed at six this morning. I quickly dressed in wools socks, leg warmers and shorts under cut-off jeans, and my warmest jacket. Leaving my apartment it was as dark outside as it had been the night before when I went to bed.
It seems the trick to getting up early when the sun hides behind clouds, is to rise before the sun. I rode for an hour. The park slowly filled with light, and I was awake.
