Today is Labor Day. No work. No school. Freedom to sleep in as one sees fit and is able. What did I do? I rolled out of bed at eight o’clock and headed to the gym. One of my sacred spaces. There I can do for me and just for me. I can work for my good and what I do is for no one else but me.  I can leave feeling accomplished and stronger. I love starting mornings like that.

I often declare that I am not a morning person, but the truth is that, within the right parameters, I am. Work mornings are all about doing, going, getting there (wherever there is) on time. They are rushed and clinical and I am focused on almost everything but myself. There are days that I have been so rushed that I have left my coffee on top of the washing machine and even forgotten to comb my hair or brush my teeth once or twice had to sneak into the bathroom at work to do so before I met anyone or my students. No, most days I am not a morning person.

Now, give me a morning when I can sleep until I wake up on my own (meaning, I’m not summoned by our four-year-old or an alarm). A morning where the light in the sky is tinged with newborn white and gold. A morning still so new that I haven’t even planned it out yet and anything could happen or be done, where I can choose to do something just for me without the guilt of all that “needs to be done”. A morning where I can drink in silence and cool breezes. Give me a morning with all of these magical ingredients and I’m absolutely a morning person and completely in love.

I love going out for breakfast. I love early morning matinees at the movies. I love morning walks and talks and deep thoughts, sitting on stairs, sofas, the foot of beds, and coffee shops. I love cuddling up in a cozy blanket and watching movie trailers. I love holding my TARDIS mug full of coffee in my hands and breathing in the morning mists that roll off the fields, basking in the silence of our little town in the early of the day. I love the dusky color of the morning sky, like the fragile, lovely shell of a robin’s egg. I love the feeling that the day is waking to greet me, rolling over in its arched bed like my loved one to start my day with a tender kiss. It’s in these beautiful moments that I am most definitely a morning person.