Germany's Calling

I'm tired. But then again I'm always tired so does my mind just work at a state of slowness and all those around me have achieved quick efficient paces? I wish there were mornings that I when I woke up and I was bright, alert and energetically moving towards the future. I don't like the effects of coffee any more and do what I can do to let tea 'naturally' effect my body with caffeine. When I drink coffee I either become jittery and what I might surmise as me begin on crack; after about an hour or so I become more tired than I was before I had the coffee. Shit I think, why did I even drink it? Now I'm functioning at a pace slower than my normal pace which is actively slower than the rest of humanity. And the idea of drinking coffee to the effect to which I feel as though I am on crack (I may be politically incorrect in comparing the effects of coffee to crack seeing how I have never experienced crack, those who have more knowledge can educate me) makes my mind spin, and sorry to say I am just not one to enjoy that feeling. Thus I am left to decide, am I not a morning person or am I a person who needs a swift kick in the butt in order to achieve an attitude of congeniality in the morning. This is the test, my hypothesis I suppose. In comparison to those adults I know and love, I am a morning person to which I thus say, how in the hell do those I know and love make it out of bed in the morning?
I suppose what make me a moring person is the pure fact that when I am awake and ALONE there are elements to the morning that make me swoon. The following is a little over a year old but it sums up the feelings I'm writing about.

I woke up early this morning so that I could run to the store for milk and eggs in order that my son and I might have some breakfast. Trader Joe's doesn't open until nine so I had to grab my bike and head over to Freddy's. I like my route to Freddy's cause I avoid any major streets and traffic. I go straight down Hoyt to the dog park, cut through the park to end up on Glisan which puts me on 20th street which I take directly to the back entrance of Freddys. I like 20th street because the actual street is rough, bumpy and terrible to ride over which is fun to me. I think of riding down paved over cobble stone streets in Bremen when I ride 20th. Early in the morning 20th is great because if the cold brisk air has not opened my eyes then it is the street's physical condition that rattles and jolts my body awake. But this is not the best part, this is just an element to the ride which I must describe in order to understand the entirety of these short five minutes.

What I love most, (and this might be reasoning for debate over weather I am a morning person genetically or environmentally) is my fondness for cold brisk mornings in which the sun has not made it up and beyond the grey clouds. There is a part of Arizona in this morning. I don't know Arizona for two cents, but I do know its mornings. Waking up in the car on the first leg of a long family road trip out to bazaar parts of the middle of America is what I feel. Laying on the floor of the car with blankets and pillows, I remember peeping up over the windows to scan a sparsely covered horizon only to wonder where the sun might be seeing how I surprisingly was awake before it was. I place myself in Arizona because I could never sleep much further than any of its cities, and because it was always open, cold wakening me. Arizona's grey sky was not full of rain but rather just full of the morning air and contained a quiet sanctity which those of us awake were to respect. We would hold this sacred time in quiet thought with an absence of verbal communication. I remember feeling the chill of a new morning but feeling that chill awaken me softly and naturally, not like an obnoxious alarm clock that screams at you. I love and value that kind of alertness, it is natural and fresh leaving me feel content and at peace.

There is a freshness to mornings and especially my morning and Arizona mornings. Arizona is clean because of its so few inhabitants and its atunement to the nature which it is composed of, but my morning bike ride is clean because those few who are up with me respect the quiet clean that composes this morning. It is as if we tell each other not to rush one another, not to hassle the other into that quick turn to get out of the way, to breathe this still soft morning air which we are the prized few to receive this quality of life. The sky is similar to Arizona in the fact that the sun will come up this morning but just not quite yet. The clouds hold sunlight with in them but do not reflect it out upon us, they are still a light grey with grey sky slowly opening so that I cannot quite tell if it is sky or cloud I am looking at. My bike coasts down Hoyt street and I cut up the curb quickly into the park. The air feels colder this way and I like that. I like waking up and breathing in deeply, I like knowing that there is no traffic on the other side of the park which then allows me to coast on through the park and across the street and on to my destination unimpeded. Unlike the blankets I could cuddle into when riding in the car, I am forced to pile on layers of clothing: hat, shirt, shirt with sleeves, cardigan over the sleeves and a jacket over that. I button the middle and the oh so thankful top top button which closes the jacket around my neck so that I don't have to wear a scarf. Scarfs implicate winter, layers implicate fall and I supposes quick downhill rides to the market. My hands are cold but I have chosen this, if I were to walk I could walk the whole way there with my hands in my pockets and a quick stride but then the wind is not moving fast enough around me for me to experience it. No, I ride my bike in order to feel the rushing air and to wake up by the uneven, rough, and crappy road.

But this is why I am a morning person. I choose to feel the brisk cold against my open skin, I choose to stay awake in the back of the car to stare at a quiet landscape and await the sun. Those who I am close to and despise the morning don't see this or feel this. Like my brother who would remain asleep for another four five hours in the car they would rather enjoy the slumber of dreams while I soak in a clean quiet serene landscape. I see my husband making the same bike ride this morning with crusty eyes and a pinched look upon his face. No he cannot be awoken by the mornings cold charm, he chooses the bed with blankest and sheets which truly has its own sweetness to a morning.

Now what could complete such an awe inspiring morning but a hot cup of coffee to truly awaken the body....