In Defense of Dawn

The phrase “crack of dawn” is an ugly one. It has always reminded me of another infamous crack, and not in a good way. No, it’s in a plumber-who-wears-his-pants-too-low way. It leads me to believe that the person who coined the phrase “crack of dawn” was not a morning person.

No, if this person had been a morning person, she would have called it, “the first glorious hint of dawn.”

Crack of dawn? Crack? That’s a word that only a dawn hater would use.

Just my opinion.

Anyway, I’m on a mission to give Dawn a better name. I want to call it something more pleasant, something like Kiss of Dawn. I really like that. First, it rhymes with bliss. Second, dawns are pink, and a kiss could be pink. Cracks are definitely not pink. Third, isn’t it more pleasant to wake to a kiss than a crack? Who wants to wake up to crack? Who?

I rest my case.

This morning, I just so happened to be awake at the Kiss of Dawn. (See? Has a nice ring to it, doesn’t it?) Please note that I did not rise early for any truly Zen reason. It wasn’t to meditate. It wasn’t to experience the sunrise, and it certainly wasn’t because my body clock happened to ring loudly at that moment, rousing me from the wonders of sleep that I never seem to get enough of.

No, I did it for one reason. I did it to get more done. I wanted to add a couple extra hours to my workday.

The first thing I noticed? It wasn’t as hard to get up as I’d imagined. I was already out of bed by the time I’d shut off my alarm. (Note: this is a little tip of mine for those of you who have trouble getting out of bed in the morning. Put your alarm far enough away from the bed that you have to physically get out of bed to turn it off).

More important, I felt awake. That sensation of cement in my bones and cotton in my head that I usually have every morning just wasn’t there. Usually, when I try to wake up, I only have three operational brain cells and they are all saying the same thing, “Caffeine. STAT.” This morning, all of my neurons were experiencing ionic flux. (Note: I don’t truly know what “ionic flux” means, but I thought it sounded nice. Don’t bother looking it up. Please. Don’t. Bother.)

The second thing I noticed? It really was dawn. The sun was coming up from behind the mountain and the entire sky was this beautiful shade of pink. I thought, “Self, it’s going to be a good day. I just know it. Let’s make it a great day.” It made me realize just how symbolically cool sunrises really are. They are all about fresh starts, new beginnings, and all good things about to come.
They embody hope.

So many people go to great lengths to watch sunsets instead, and I just don’t get it. Sunsets are all about endings. They are all about, “Thank God THAT’S over.” A sunrise is a rebirth. A sunset is a death.

You know what else I noticed? The birds sing more eloquently at the Kiss of Dawn. This morning, I walked the dog at 6:45 a.m. All sorts of different types of birds were singing all sorts of different kinds of songs.  As more and more birds woke up to face the day, there was this incredible crescendo of chirping. I imagined Benny the Robin singing to Martha, his nest mate, “How’d you sleep tonight honey?” Martha then said, “Just fine dear. By the way, your feathers are looking mighty fine today.” Benny replied, “Oh, that’s sweet of you. You think we have some time for a …” Martha: “Oh honey, you always ask that. You know we need to beat those chickadees to the worms.”

Or something like that. I’m not even sure if chickadees eat worms, but it gave me something fun to think about as I walked. When I walk the dog later in the day, I don’t think about fun things. No, I think mundane things like, “Oh please don’t poop here. I’m not in the mood to scoop poop right now.”

Now, here’s the really interesting part about the Kiss of Dawn. I’m now convinced that getting up at the Kiss of Dawn makes people happier. I could probably find a study on this. I’m sure I could point you to any number of happy early rising monks and farmers. Or I could just tell you this: I’m happy today. I’m downright overjoyed. If I were any more blissed out, I’d be levitating.

Yesterday, on the other hand, I slept in and I can tell you: Alisa was not so happy. My husband slept in, too, by the way. I got up around 9 a.m. and my first thought was, “Why does HE always get to sleep later than I do?!” Seriously. That was my first thought. You just know you are going to have a grumpy day when you wake up mad at your husband and he hasn’t even gotten out of bed yet.

The day just went from bad mood to worst from there. I really don’t need to recount all of the grumpy details here because doing so would accomplish just one thing: make me look bad.

Anyway, this morning was my husband’s morning to do the daycare drop off. As I got up, my husband asked me to wake him up at 7:30. Now, usually, when I’m grumpy, my response to such a question would be something like, “You own a watch.” On this blissful day, however, I said, “Sure dear. I’d be happy to wake you.”

At 7:30, I shook him gently, said good morning, and opened the shades.

At 8 p.m. I walked into the bedroom and laughed. He was still in bed. “Having some trouble?” I said. Now, if this had been a Me Sleep Late Day, I would have walked in and said, “Don’t you think it’s about time you got your ass out of bed?”

When he finally got himself up another half hour later, I actually smiled and said, “Wow, you’re up. Good morning!” (Let’s not do the Me Sleep Late response here. It’s not pretty).

This all led me to come up with a theory. I’m calling it, “Alisa’s Theory of the Cause of I’m Not a Morning Person Syndrome.” It goes like this. I’m-Not-a-Morning-Person Syndrome is a modern invention, one that was created, in part, by light bulbs and the Internet. People only think they are not a morning people because:

• They stay up too late at night trying to come up with witty status updates on Facebook.

• They have a Godforsaken day jobs that no one in their right mind would want to wake up to go to. As a result, they’ve associated mornings with the same crummy sensation they feel as they walk into the Godforsaken location of the Godforsaken day job. They even hate mornings on weekends, even though they have no Godforsaken day job to make them feel crummy in the morning on the weekends. They associate the morning with work, so they prefer to sleep right through it.

• They sleep long past the Kiss of Dawn, and with each passing post dawn minute, it gets harder and harder to wake. Believe me. I know. Until today, I was a big believer in the art of putting child in front of cartoons so tired old mommy could sleep a bit later. You know what? It’s a lot harder to wake at 10 a.m. than it is to wake at 6. I know. At 10 a.m. my eyelids are superglued shut and my brain cells have all died from caffeine withdrawal. At 6, however, I’m still a functioning human being. Six is easier than 10. It just is. It’s one of those strange but true universal mysteries.

Now, if you are night person, you probably already have an argument formed in your mind. In fact, you probably can’t wait to get to the end of this blasted blog entry so you can leave me a nice, snippy comment, letting me know that I don’t know anything about mornings and that you’ll call it the Crack of Dawn if you want to.

I welcome your comments. I do. Just do this one thing for me, okay? Try it. Get up at the Kiss of Dawn one day, and not because you have to do it to get to work on time. Do it just because. See what happens.

It’s possible I’m a genetic anomaly. It’s possible that I’m a morning person and you’re a night person. I mean it really is possible. Dawn is my middle name after all. Literally. It is. Maybe your middle name is Eve or Twilight or, I don’t know, Nocturnal. Maybe. Anything is possible. But it’s also possible that you, my husband, and the rest of the late sleeping universe are just sleeping too God damned late. Just saying.

Are you a morning person or a night person? Do you believe we should rename the early morning hours the Kiss of Dawn? Leave a comment.

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