I Wish I Were a Lark

--one of those people who wake up alert, smell the coffee and want to carpe diem.

Instead, I resent the early morning bird twittering, believe alarm clocks are evil inventions to enslave a conformist population and I wish only to carpe dormire.

The thought of eating in the morning makes my stomach queasy. I do have next of kin who can wolf down Grand Slams, coffee, biscuits and gravy and go all day on it but I don’t know how they face that in the morning.

I have never cared much for coffee and would rather get my caffeine from a cold Coke but somehow it is unseemly a drink in the morning—suspect of being more as if I were adding rum or something. I dare not drink tea, having recently become a member of the Tea Party and need to save my tea bags to attach to my hat for the April 15^th event this year.

It is true that the sun coming up over a meadow with early morning frost can be quite beautiful and I can look at those photographs all day long any time after 10 a.m. I love to be present for sunsets and their sweep of never ending colors and variations across the sky over ocean or even roof tops and watch as the sky turns purple and night time takes on its mystery.

Lark friends tell me that they love the quiet of the morning starting their day around 4 or 5 a.m. They even exercise. Three words you will never hear me say together are “brisk morning walk.” How do they do that when it’s all I can do to crawl out of bed?

Early risers do have the advantage of being able to call businesses on the East Coast, but then as morning wears on daytime fills with crowds of people tying up phone lines as well as streets and freeways on their way to school or work.

Because let’s face it, owls are out of step with the rest of the business days activities and that makes scheduling appointments or surgery more difficult. It has been suggested to me—more than once—that I just go to bed earlier and voila, I will wake up with the rest of the larks, rarin’ to go. No, it doesn’t work that way, I will lie in my bed and stare at the ceiling--as well as I can in the dark--for several hours, thinking of all the useful things I might be doing.

As it turns out, there truly are larks and owls and it all has to do with an individual circadian rhythms. Normal rise and fall of body temperature determine rhythms of sleep and wakefulness. If like my sister, or my friend Kittie, your body temperature drops at 10 p.m. you are lights out and “up and at ‘em” first thing in the morning even on weekends thus allowing you to tout your wonderful garage sale finds or any other worm that early birds catch. The only thing that ever got me out of bed for sunrise was the rim of the Grand Canyon. Why would you want a worm anyway?

I got up early one other time. Since I wasn’t waiting for the coffee to brew or breakfast and didn’t need to call New York, I didn’t know what to do with foggy-headed self and I went back to bed.

Being a relative or friend of an early riser can be particularly difficult. For some reason they don’t understand that I don’t want their eight a.m. calls anymore than they want my midnight calls.

I have been told by a few close friends that they don’t call me early, not because they understand my circadian rhythms but because I am incoherent. I don’t remember that and I probably don’t remember the phone call either. I am eternally grateful for e-mails and so are my larky friends.

Something I have noticed about Larks is that they like to note the time stamp on e-mails and probably posts to Facebook. Why? Maybe I can get one of them to explain this to me. So I’m up late, very very late maybe, how do you know I didn’t just wake up very, very early, huh?

I love the night time. It is so quiet and cool. The phone is not going to ring unless it is another owl friend calling. The door bell almost certainly isn’t going to ring unless it’s the police. All the noises of the day have settled down, interruptions are far, far fewer. Children are sleeping--hopefully. Pets don’t mind keeping you quiet company.

There are no cars at the drive-thru to slow your burger down, there are no crying children in the markets or restaurants and no one trying to sneak through the 12 item line with 13 items. People up at night are usually not rushing to get somewhere else. Hardly anyone honks their horn at night. Movie theaters are nearly empty for very late shows.

Expectations are less at night. No make-up, who cares? Not driving hand’s free? Who can see? Forgot to change out of your slippers... no funny looks (unless they are the duck feet slippers). You can put on an old sweater or sweat shirt to go out--one that you wouldn’t dare wear during the day. Night time is a time to be comfortable, informal, cozy even.

Furthermore, my muse keeps erratic hours and always will unless I train him or her to show up only at appointed times, but where’s the creativity in that? My muse is no lark either.

Well, I seem to have talked myself out of wanting to be a lark even if it were possible to change. You can’t be a member of the Lark’s club anyway if you are not a Starbuck gift card totin’ coffee drinker and I’m not.

I enjoy being an owl. I almost never get to talk to the East Coast though. The only thing that troubles me is my perception people who don’t know me might possibly believe that I am lazy, slothful, a miscreant or have a drinking, gambling or other problem since I go to bed late and wake up late. Shoot, they ought to know and I’m here to tell them, I’m not having that much fun.

The owls aren’t what they seem...they are far more interesting. Just ask Robin or Snowy.