Morning Magic

Early hours, endless wonder

I ordered a salted caramel old fashioned last night at dinner, so I was awake at 2:15am questioning everything (everything!) that happened in my classroom yesterday - over and over, round and round, until I just trudged down the stairs and made coffee.

Alcohol does that to me now, predictable as sunrise. Teaching also does that to me, but that’s a topic for never. I’ll just put it over here on this shelf. Hold on.

Ok I’m back. Here’s what I want you to know. I reeeaalllly love early mornings. It’s not only peaceful at my house in the woods, it’s embracing somehow. I read a short story once, told from the point of view of a house that saw a family arrive, grow, change, evolve, then leave. It was so beautiful. Sublime. I know it’s weird, but my house loves when I’m up at 2am. The change of pace is refreshing for a house only looking after two old(er) people who go to bed at 9 o’clock at night. Me turning on lights in the dead of night is an energy jolt, I’m sure. You know what this house really needs, I think at 2am? Its children to visit. Ahem.

I have laundry going. My dog, Reuben, is snoring beside me, and the hum of the furnace is lulling me to contented calm. It must be frigid outside — the deck keeps snapping as the wood and nails shrink and trapped moisture freezes, then releases in alarming, loud, clamorous pops and cracks. Reuben is not impressed, but I don’t mind. The house is only shifting to accommodate is all.

These moments. They are cherry blossoms. Sand dollars. Honey. Hugs. Fireflies. Sapphires. Butterfly kisses. Moonbeams. Hummingbirds. A cup of coffee that stays hot until it’s gone. The best, best, best of things.

In the early mornings, my thoughts are my own. My house asks for nothing. No conversation. No decisions made. No expectations. No demands. It doesn’t ask me a question and then ignore the answer. To say the absolute very least, very obvious thing: my job is boisterous. But my house? My house is blissfully silent, which I’ve learned to love.

I used to be a total extrovert—I mean that sincerely, not flippantly. I didn’t realize a person’s energy spectrum could shift so dramatically, but mine did, so I can attest it’s possible. In high school and college, I thrived on being everywhere at once. When the kids were little, it was the same energy, just in new form. I loved all of it. Life felt vibrant, expansive, and full to the brim. I knew I was lucky to live it, and I didn’t want to waste a second. Never, never did I think I would prefer a game a scrabble and a slice of pie over being out, about, seen and heard.

These days, I move more fluidly between full engagement with people and periods of quiet renewal. I’m an omnivert, it seems. I shift quickly between extroversion and introversion, depending on what a situation—or even a conversation— brings up in me. I can go from gregarious and personable to cool and hard to read in an instant. I know it, I see it, I own it — and I resisted it for a long time, in a performative effort to keep others comfortable. (People, I’ve found, prefer an extrovert.) But I’m learning to ride the wave between the two instead. I used to be fully one or the other—now, I’m both. No big deal. I’m sure no one overthinks it like I do.

In any case, a significant shift occurred. It happened in the years my kids were leaving home, I think.

The subject of empty nesting has been clubbed to death, don’t you think? In books and blogs and articles and studies? In that specific way, I think it’s detrimental to know so much about so much these days. If others have been through it, and written about it and talked about it and made it compelling to read and think about, why on earth would I even bring it up? When things are explained, and explained well, by others, it sort of negates the resonance of yet another person trying to elucidate what countless have been through before. So I didn’t. Not to anyone.

If others can do it I guess it’s no big deal, I thought. I’ll just get on with it. Which coincided with a global pandemic, which coincided with perimenopause, which coincided with internal upheaval I’ve still to name. Messy, cacophonous, slippery and rude, dammit. Rude!

Deep breath. I miss my children like the tide misses the moon. We influence and tug each other but from so, so far. Deep exhale.

I miss their treasure maps and blanket forts, their snow tunnels and trails of crumbs on the dingy kitchen linoleum. I miss Garrett’s quick, uninhibited, endearing smile and constant, jubilant motion. Luke’s raspy voice, hugs, and meandering stories about his day. Natalie’s homemade cards with stick figure drawings of our family surrounded by dozens of hearts in all colors - and her twirling the hair at the nape of my neck as she fell asleep.

These memories, they’re attached to me like the deck that’s on my house. I, too, have been shifting to accommodate. I’ve shrunken and trapped my memories like the moisture in the nails—and sometimes, when released, my grief is just as clamorous and loud.

I miss a quadrillion other cinders of memory, things that, in my mind, built the fire our family burned while we all lived together. Embers we still burn, added to fires we’re still building, even if in separate houses. I can’t speak for my kids, but they sure do keep me warm.

I’ve always said my favorite age was whatever ages my kids happened to be, and that’s still true. I promise, it’s still true. My kids are adults now (26, 24 and 20) and knowing them, witnessing them build their lives, sharing in their triumphs and struggles - it’s incredible - a perpetual joy. I wouldn’t change one thing about any of it. But it doesn’t stop me missing all the thems they used to be.

Anyway. I think why I’m enraptured with early mornings is really about celebrating this bittersweet liminal space. Between sleep and awake, between home and work, between past and future, between quiet reflection and loud living: 2am is omnivert energy. The house breathes with me. The tide tugs, the moon answers. It’s just staggering. All I have to do is pay attention - the rest unfolds.