From My Perspective: The Promise of a Quiet Morning

In general, I'm a pretty early riser. I've always been this way. When I was younger, there were animals that needed caring for before heading off to school, and in the summertime, they needed caring for before the heat of the day set in.

When I was a new mother, it was the hour of silence before my kids woke up, giving me time to think and plan for the day ahead. When I was a young working mother who decided to go back to college, those two quiet hours before anyone in the house woke up were when I studied, wrote papers and completed homework without interruption. It gave me the time I needed so I could be present for my family when they needed me.

After I finished those courses and earned my degree, we moved to a quiet place in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. I still worked in the city and had a two-and-a-half hour, commute each way. I had to get up early to make the commute, but the time alone in the car was my quiet time, and a small handheld tape-recorder allowed me to record notes and reminders to myself.

From my perspective, mornings offer the promise of a new day, and quiet mornings are the silent strength behind them. They allow the fortune of time to meditate, breathe, plan and begin. It's the stillness before the hustle of the rest of the world and its demands on my time, my peace, and sometimes, my sanity.

Quiet mornings give me time to write (like this column), and reflect. New ideas come to me best during my first hour or so each day.

The drawback of being an early riser is that I find myself wanting to be in bed about 8 p.m. (My other half insists it's because I'm getting older, but I choose to decline in the belief of THAT idea). The true difficulty for me wanting to go to bed so early, especially during summer months in Montana is that I feel like I'm wasting daylight, especially when it doesn't truly get dark before 10 p.m. during the peak of summer. My justification though is that during my summers here, it's light by 5 a.m., and I usually accomplish more by 8 a.m. than most people do in an entire day. I'm sure the same could be said for those who stay up until all hours of the night.

Whether you're an early-riser like me, or a night-owl who's generally crawling into bed about the time I get up each day doesn't really matter. What does, is using your peak time for what's important to you. Whether it's reading a good book, binge watching TV shows, being creative in your own way, or doing some of the things that I do - just at a different time of the day, recognize when your best time is to do it, and if your schedule allows, enjoy the heck out of it!

Nowadays, what's important to me during my peak times of early mornings is my creativity. It's my time to write, my time to create things with fiber, yarn, and some needles. It's the time for me to do the things I love during a very productive timeframe.

Early mornings offer me the satisfaction of listening to the hoot-owls in the trees outside our cabin, or the "yip-yip-yip" from coyotes across the river from us. It allows me the opportunity of watching night fade and morning awaken casting light over the mountains. Mornings give me hope and strength for my day ahead.

If you haven't experienced the morning the way I choose to, I invite you to try. I invite you to the promise of the quiet morning and the day that lies before you, to find your zone, your peak time, and to make something beautiful out of it.