Mornings

It's Good Friday. Zoë, our scrawny excuse for a barn cat, sits on the arm of my chair and Seamus, the dog, lies beside the chair on the floor. Jane is still upstairs sleeping. It's quiet.



They tell me spring is here, and I guess I believe that winter is finally fading, but it's cold and damp out, so I have a fire going. Or as Jane likes to tease me, "I have a fire in the fireplace." Where else would I have a fire, she'd like to know? As opposed to the one on the dining room table, or in the laundry room, she guesses. We'll come home from being out and I'll announce that, "I'm going to start a fire in the fireplace." She's got a point.

I have come to love mornings. I love being on my own in the house before anyone else gets up. It's only Jane and I this morning anyway as Ricky and Julia are both staying at friend's houses. It's more and more that way. Kind of a sneak peak of what it will be like when everyone's moved out. The other day, Ricky asked, "Where is everybody?" There is only Jane, Julia, Ricky and myself these days, since Jessica is off at school. Ricky was asking Jane and I this question, so Julia was the only person not there. "Where is everybody?" he asked and we laughed. But we all knew how he felt. Some days it feels like we're missing a few people. Like, we used to have quite a crowd around here, and now it's just us.

Anyway, I like to be alone in the house in the morning. Have turned into quite the morning person, despite all evidence to the contrary in my youth. Used to be that I would stay up to all hours watching TV or reading, or whatever, and then sleep in. But now I'm in bed by 9:30pm most nights and I rise early. Of course, during the week, I have to get up early for work. But even on the weekends, I enjoy being up early, regardless of when I went to bed.

Mornings on the weekend have become quite valuable to me. I generally feel that anything that gets done before noon on a day off is a bonus. Like if you get up and go for a run, or do errands, or write an essay,and you do it before noon, you're one up on the day and still have the better part of it to do something else. It's like free time, literally. In fact, I'm only one step away from setting my alarm for 5:30am just so I can feel like I got my money's worth.

When you're up and out, especially on a weekend, you feel special. Like when there's a heavy snow, and you're one of the few cars out. You pass another lonely soul on the road and you tip your hats to one another knowingly. "It's just us," you seem to say to each other. It's an explorer spirit. Not so much to have gone where no one has gone before, but at least to be where so few are.

Jane and I used to get up and run on New Year's day. After an amatuer evening of drinking, you could be fairly assured that most people were still under the covers, nursing hangovers. It was almost an act of aggression on our part. To fly in the face of convention. But then, it was also nice to know that we were the only ones out.

The Wawa is where these restless souls converge. On the islands, you'll see men in their weekend clothes-khaki shorts, docksiders, baggy shirt, and a baseball cap-come in and buy a paper and a coffee. This is a different crowd than you see in the mornings during the week. During the week, it's much more crowded, but with men in work boot, paint-stained coveralls, and dirt under their fingernails. Every other purchase comes with a pack of cigarettes. There's also a lot more camaraderie, as this is a fairly small community and these men know each other. They call each other by their first names, and they flirt with the women who work the counter.

The weekend men are different. They don't know each other, nor do they know anyone else. This isn't a social call, but simply a pit stop in their morning. They enter quietly, not making eye contact, and go about their business. They wear Tommy Bahama and Eddie Bauer; loafers and golf shirts. Weekend clothes.

But this morning, I'm not out and about. This morning, I sit in front of the fire, and think about a time when I'll be picking up coffee and heading to the beach to surf.