Wednesday, December 14th, 2011
 Central Park East, 7:15am

I always have this conundrum when my alarm goes off in the morning.  The problem is, I have time to get to work before 9 (not that that matters to anyone but me - Gregoire doesn't care) if I start my walk at 7 or 7:15 instead of 6:30.   That is, I don't have to be up at 6:20 - it's excessively early if my goal is just getting to work around 8:45 or so.   Every morning at 6:20, my alarm goes off and I think "Oh God no.  It can't possibly be 6:20 already.  It's so dark.  There must be some mistake.  I feel so tired - must. go. back. to sleep."  Then I reach for my phone to turn the alarm off - it's 6:20 - time to get up.  Then I face the evil me trying to keep me from getting up.  "You're so tired - you've been working so hard!  Just go back to sleep!" Some mornings I do - but most mornings I don't.

You might not think this is a big deal since I get to work on time either way.  But whether I get up at 6:20 versus 7:10 changes my entire day.  The thing that gets me out of bed is that I like to be in the 6:20 club.  I like to go outside when it is still dark out.  I like seeing the construction guys wandering around with their coffee, joking around with each other.  I like to see the moon still out.  I like it being quieter and well....different from the daytime.  It feels special to be out while it's still dark.  Most of all, I like that when I get to Central Park and turn around to face the rest of the East Side, the sun is rising.  The fact that I'm going to miss the sunrise if I don't drag my lazy bones out of bed is the main reason I get up at 6:20 instead of 7:10.  If you get up at 7:10, it's just the 7:10 club that's out.  The 7:10 club isn't the same.

I think it reminds me of when I was a kid.  My Dad always did special stuff with Sarah and I early in the morning.  He would come into our rooms when it was still dark and whisper that we had to get up because we had things to go do.  Sometimes we would just go early for pancakes at Elmer's or Fat City out in Oregon.  Also sometimes we would go fishing at Lake Codoris.  Those mornings we would get up really early and then go to McDonald's and get a hash brown on the way there.  We'd see the sunrise on the drive and then get there in time to go catch some sunnies.  We also used to get up really early to go to basketball tournaments.  When I got up early with Mom it was to go to the barn early in the morning when we had Roger.  Or just in the past year or so Mom and I were out in Bend turning off the alarms early to pull long underwear on, get our instant coffee and go skiing all day.  It's funny, when I wake up early I whisper to Sofie just like my Mom & Dad did to Sarah and I,  "Are you ready to go have adventures in the Park? I know it's going to be so fun today!  Maybe it will snow!" (I know I'm crazy - my dog sits in as a surrogate child since I'm a graduate student and will be old by the time I can have children).

Either way, the point is that if you think about it, you only get up really early in the morning because you have so many fun things to do with the day that they won't all fit unless you expand your day with a few extra hours tacked at the beginning.  I think that's why getting up early feels special - it brings you back to all those mornings you got a rush of adrenaline when the 5am alarm went off and you knew you got to go do something really fun.


Now I'm going to post something every day to get you in the holiday spirit!  Here's day 1!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jyCfRHumHU