JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: During the two-week heat wave we had in Maine, I was
performing a very specific morning ritual. I would set my alarm for 5:30am to
6:30am, depending on when the last of the nighttime cooler temperatures ended.
I’d go through the upstairs and downstairs, pulling fans out of the windows,
closing them and drawing the curtains on the east side of the house. Then back
to my bedroom, where the Shih Tzus hadn’t even stirred, and sleep until ten.
It was genuinely lovely to see the earliest light and feel the fresh air. In fact, every time I’ve been up and about at dawn in recent years, I enjoy it. I wish my ideal morning started with rising at six. But let’s face it. I spent thirty years rising at six - first as a law student, then working, then as a parent X 3 - and by the time the kids were old enough to oversee getting themselves dressed and out the door, they needed to be driven to school.
And for
thirty years, even when I didn’t have to get up early, I was constantly
annoyed by blessed with a husband who was the larkiest of larks to ever
take wing. Ross disagreed with the poet: morning’s at six, or even better,
five-thirty. He couldn’t understand why I “needed so much sleep” - completely
unaware that when he went up to bed at 8pm to “read,” he would be snoring
beneath his book in fifteen minutes.
So despite the charms of the hill sides dew pearl’d, etc., I’ll continue to indulge myself in sleeping in. Maybe after thirty years of rising at nine or ten, I’ll be ready to see the dawn again.
How
about you, Reds? If there’s no reason to set your alarm, are you larking about?
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: If there’s no reason to set my alarm, my eyes open at 5:30. Then they close as fast as they possibly can. FORGETABOUTIT. Then they open again at 7:30. I check—do I HAVE to get up? No? Okay, then, back to sleep. At 8:30 I am up up up because I don’t want to miss any of the fun of the day. Or the work-time.) I don’t go to sleep until about 12:30, though, so the awake-time span makes sense. (If I go to sleep too early, I miss too much of the fun of the night.)
LUCY BURDETTE: What is this thing you call ‘fun of the night’? LOL I definitely prefer morning and work better in the morning, though I’m not a 5:30 Lark like Ross was. 6:30 or 7 is a good time for me–I enjoy being up first when everyone except for Tbone is asleep. He’s so friendly to the first person to arrive–it sounds silly but I love it! The light very much affects how I sleep, and it gets light ridiculously early in Connecticut. (I would so be in favor of Daylight Savings going the way of the dodo.)
RHYS BOWEN: The larkiest of larks here. Even on days when I don’t have to wake
up early I’m awake with the sun. Today it was 5:58AM. So before I got up I read
my emails, took care of social media, booked train for four people from London
to Cornwall, booked four air tickets to Marseille and then put the kettle on
for breakfast. I can’t sleep in late no matter where I am. This is good
as I get my best work done in those early hours. But I do tend to crash right
before 10 at night these days (and sneak a nap in the afternoon).
HALLIE EPHRON: Count me in the LARK camp, too. Sadly I tend to wake up at 5 AM… MUCH too early but there you have it. It’s when the sun is up. And of course I’m asleep early (10 at the latest) so I should be getting enough sleep. That’s the theory at least. When I was working I’d negotiated an EARLY start to the day (at work by 6:30 AM) so I could leave at 3:30 and avoid the worst traffic and get to my kids. So maybe that’s where I got into the habit of rising early.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I’m on Hank’s schedule, bed about midnight and up usually between 7:30
and 8, so neither a true lark or owl. This is partly my own natural
inclination, and partly that Rick is a bonafide owl, so we tend to run late on
meals, etc. all day. I like being up early once I’m up, but there is no way I’m
going to sleep at 8 or 9 p.m.!
JENN McKINLAY: I’m an early bird! In bed reading by 10:00 and up at 6:00! I love morning but also my geriatric schnauzer Otto starts huffing at 5:30/6:00, demanding Hub or I get up. Who needs a rooster?
JULIA: How about you, dear reader? Do you prefer to hoot it up, or are you more inclined to lark about? Do you wish you were different? And for those of you half-remembering the source of today's blog title, I present Pippa's Song, by Robert Browning:
The year's at the spring,
And day's at the morn;
Morning's at seven;
The hill-side's dew-pearl'd;
The lark's on the wing;
The snail's on the thorn;
God's in His heaven,
All's right with the world!
