Morenings

This compulsion to wake up early. Now what do I do? Guess I'll write down my morning groundrules for the whole world to see. I love getting up early for a photograph, or for some hike or maneuver that needs to set up the rest of the day. It's easy to get up when you have something cool to do, but harder if you spend all the other mornings lollygagging in bed until the last possible second of obligation. I guess it's about staying in practice. After living in both modes, here's what I need:

1) To see the sun, or be able to imagine where it is. Low. Way down on the edge of the earth if not still under it, where it's not beating on your brain yet to go get things done.

2) To read a little something that's not the internet or on a screen. Made of paper. And not the news. Nothing is older than the news. No TV.

3) Music.

4) Chemicals. Coffee or water or enough anticipation-induced norepinephrin or peace-induced oxytocin to get ready to crush, or hang loose for a long peaceful front porch AM.

5) To do something, anything, (if there's no project or adventure pressing) that I want before I go off and work, i.e., do something someone else wants.

At the Ruins, the solution to all these were ready at hand. Hills, beach, surf. Choose challenge or relax watching the sheep and clouds. Rough, I know. Building a fire was one of the great cold morning rituals. But what to do in a Montgomery Alabama Hampton Inn stranded behind a Dillard's in a sea of parkinglot?

Still working on that one.