“Life is too short,” she panicked, “I want more.” He nodded slowly, “Wake up earlier.”
The morning is warmer than it has been all week and tomorrow will be warmer still. The sun is bright, the air clear. Only the the smallest branches are moving. I need to go out later to get a few things, and I’m glad. I wouldn’t want to waste a day like today.
Sometimes I wake up in the very early morning. I check the clock. The other day it was 5:15. The house was dark and nighttime cold so I turned over and easily fell back to sleep.
When I worked, my alarm jarred me awake at 5 o’clock. I’d get out of bed, make my coffee, turn on the morning news, check my e-mail then be out of the house by 6:20. The papers usually came after I’d left. They were evening papers.
In Ghana, I didn’t use an alarm clock. I went to bed so early I woke up early. My bedroom windows stretched across the side wall and faced the school compound. From those windows, I could hear the voices of my students, their buckets clinking and water filling the buckets from the pump. I’d get up and get dressed then sit outside on my porch to have my first mug of coffee. For breakfast every day I had two eggs fried in peanut oil and two pieces of toast. After breakfast, I’d sit on the porch for a bit and dawdled while I finished my second mug of coffee. Soon enough it was time to teach my first class so I’d walk over to the classroom block and begin teaching. In between classes, I’d walk home and have another cup of coffee, my third of the day.
I loved mornings in Ghana. They smelled of wood burning. Roosters announced the start of the day. The air was not yet stifling. I didn’t ever have to rush. I could just sit on the porch and take it all in: the sounds, the smells and the roosters.
My mornings now remind me of my Ghanaian mornings but without roosters or charcoal fires. They are leisurely. I get to dawdle. On warm days I sit on the deck, drink my coffee and read my papers. I watch the birds. They are my silent roosters.
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keepthecoffeecoming.blog 
March 9, 2019 at 1:52 pm
Hi Kat,
Monday morning I will be driving to work in the dark again. 😦 There are all kinds of arguments against daylight savings time including an argument in both directions from an energy saving point of view.
Mornings are not my favorite time of day. On Saturday I like to sleep in late and on Sunday I watch CBS Sunday Morning. During the week I get up around 5:45 and turn off my alarm before it awakes anyone else in the house. Unfortunately, there are no Roosters to crow in my neighborhood. BTW I change the channel on Sunday when the political shows come on the air. I can’t watch the Trump administration destroy our democracy. This article is very scary.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/03/11/the-making-of-the-fox-news-white-house
After the rain this morning, the sun is out and the high temperature is forecasted for 77 degrees. Unfortunately, our AC is not on because they are going to replace the chiller later this month before it really gets hot. 😦
March 9, 2019 at 3:10 pm
Hi Bob,
I didn’t mind going to work in the dark of the morning, but I didn’t like going home in the dark. It made me want to do no nothing when I got home.
I don’t mind mornings. They used to be my favorite time of day. Now I sometimes stay up far too late, until two or even later, and sleep late in the mornings. I love the nighttimes when my world is quiet and no-one else is around.
That is most decidedly a scary article. I knew a good amount of the broader story, but the particulars are new to me. I watch MSNBC more than any other news networks. They are not friends to the president.
It is a chilly day rather than a really cold one.
March 9, 2019 at 6:34 pm
The Republicans under Reagan killed the fairness doctrine in broadcast TV and they never wanted to regulate fairness in cable TV. The days of CBS news under Fred Friendly, Ed Murrow and Walter Cronkite is long dead.
The scary part is that large parts of our voting public gets their news from Fox News which has become the administration’s private propaganda machine calling any other balanced news media fake news including the N.Y. Times and the Washington Post.
March 9, 2019 at 11:13 pm
It seems the news is almost secondary to the faces of the news, the personalities who read prompters to give us the news. I prefer the news from places like CNN and MSNBC where it is the story.
I haven’t ever watched Fox News, even before our current president was elected. They are pro Trump maybe in the same way MSNBC isn’t.
March 10, 2019 at 12:30 am
Cold mornings like the one we have today usually carries the smells from wood stove fires, if we’re not up and out too early. Most of the times we’re home again before the rest of the village wakes up 🙂
We did get snow during the night, I hoped for a while that we wouldn’t because it started much later than expected. Not much snow though, less than an inch I think.
I haven’t heard a rooster here for over a year now. I think there still is one but they don’t let him out until later in the morning and he seems to be a quiet one as well. I would like to have chicken one day but I’ve said it has to wait until retirement so I really have time enough to care for them.
Have a great day!
Christer.
March 10, 2019 at 10:43 pm
Christer,
I love wood fires. The charcoal in Ghana is wood charcoal. Some villages are charcoal villages, and they have the most amazing smell when the wood is burning.
The rain has stopped, and it is warmer than I expected. I hope this means tomorrow will also be warm. I am so tired of cold, ugly days. The weatherman says it will get warmer, but you and I know how wrong they can be.
I really enjoyed hearing the rooster. I wouldn’t have one around here. My neighbors would complain.
Have a wonderful day1