Henri has to get up at 4 a.m., leave the house at five, so of course I wake early, the same with any flight day, birthday, Christmas Day. While she packs, I pootle about, making breakfast, running her bath. Two blackbirds are locked in a song contest, early geese and swans fly by, plaintive calls of long haul. The ranunculus in the jug look like a kid’s painting. The 5.30 a.m. sky is streaked with pink lipstick air trails. Henri is not the only one to fly.
March 17
4.45 a.m.
I am lying diagonally on the bed, my sleeping legs seeking my absent wife. Kentish Town is marked out in birdsong, trees hosting answering calls, like echoes in a canyon, beacons on a cliff. A dawn dialogue, the tribal chat. I wonder whether they’ve paired yet or is it like ducks on the canal: five males for every anxious female. The blackbird boundaries are hardening for the breeding season. From now until July their small town territories will be fiercely defended. As yet the call feels melodic rather than aggressive.
By 6 a.m. I am sowing beans and nasturtiums at the allotment at the top of Hampstead. The hill is an avenue of birdcall. One sings from scaffolding profiled against the breaking day. The sunrise catches the willow branches. The pink magnolia is coloured bubblegum. By 7.30 a.m. I am home, elated, making breakfast. Soon the rest of the house will wake.
March 18
5.15 a.m.
I have been up extra early reading ‘Love after Love’ by Derek Walcott, who has just died. Then into Seamus Heaney, as it was St Patrick’s Day yesterday. Henri calls from upstairs. She is having trouble sleeping. I climb into bed and curl into her. The poetry of quiet breath as her rhythm slows.
March 21
5.21 a.m.
Blue sky, spring dawn; we are past the equinox (equal night) now; for the first time in six months the day will be (just) longer than the dark. The sun creeps up behind its temporary home. The tower block lit with hope. Crows shout their welcome, magpies mock. Early light catches the rosemary flowers in the window box. Still before 7 a.m. and the sun has real warmth. A day to sow salad seed.
March 22
5.03 a.m.
Turner-esque streaky sky. The neighbour’s cat comes in off the roof, scratching at the door. She doesn’t want to stay, she doesn’t want to talk. She trots through the flat, down three flights and sits impatient, calling to be let out into the street. I watch for a few moments, see she is safe and mourn the days she came to stay.
My mornings create space to let my mood materialise, listen to myself without distraction. Like a flower adjusting to the sun, knowing which way I want to face. The room adjusts, too, takes on a glow, the flowers take on a different tone: green stems stand out in red.
The sky’s reflected now in the western window, mirroring the morning. Like a planet with two suns, bathing me in ambient light. It is not, I think about what you do in the early morning – though there are more opportunities with extra hours – it is about giving yourself me-moments, the simple gift of time. Liberated from urgency, revealing the joy of being you, unleashed like a lurcher in a meadow, all in your front room. It mostly comes with sunrise. And it’s still only 6.30 a.m.
March 25
4.33 a.m., Denmark
First, to light the fire (as always), then time for tea. By 5 a.m. the blackbirds sing. I wonder whether they have a Scandinavian accent. Within moments the hedges are alive, my tea mug steams, the flames lick at the logs. Within half an hour it’s seven degrees outside, a full twelve up on yesterday. It feels like this is the end of the frost. I am sowing spring flower seed. No sunrise through the trees today, a slow creeping in of dawn. By 5.45 a.m. there is a smear on the east horizon. Light is coming fast. I can see my writing on the page. Ink. No computer screen here. The last day of winter light. Tonight the clocks spring forward. The sun rises, silvered. A palest gold picks out the pennant on a neighbour’s flagpole. The birds chatter. The woodpecker drums.
March 26
4.06 a.m., Denmark
First day of summer, two hours on from GMT. The eastern sky has a platinum tint, newly shiny. It’s quiet, still, no sound from the sea. Within an hour, birdsong is everywhere, with many on the move. The Arctic terns are leaving, the lapwings have arrived. Resident crows, the finches, tits, all compete in the choir. I wish I knew more of their songs. Light softens as the temperature drops. Quickly down to two degrees. In an incoming sea mist the thrush song is suddenly isolated, the collared doves cacophonic.
March 27
5.05 a.m., London, back to being dark
The extra summer hour in the evening has robbed my morning light. Backwards, forwards, as though we think we have control of time. The day is on hold, you can still wake and see the sunrise. It is easier now it is later, at least for a week or two. More time to quietly contemplate, more time to write in screen light. Though we have just made later earlier, the opportunity to step outside time is still on offer if we want to slow down time. The 7 a.m. neighbour leaves his door at 6.30 a.m. today. The sun is quickly catching its stolen hour. Rising hidden now behind a new building. Sky trails bomb the tower block. A palette of blues and electric oranges, rich like Rubens.
March 31
5.05 a.m.
Crazy birdsong all around, everyone joins in. The magpies across the street pairing now, either renewing their courtship or making friends. Multiple mating calls the order of the day. In Denmark now they are mostly comically in twos, seabirds too, and gulls. Flirting, flying, aware of the need to attach. I am almost anxious to get the early bus, the seed peas downstairs call for soil. It is the time of growth, of new life, of seed spilled and spread and germination. It seems I share spring urgency. In the garden a cat calls, deep and intent.
First, could you tell me a little about yourself?
I am Jane, born 1964. I like to describe myself as a ‘creative’. I have been able to observe and draw accurately as long as I can remember and took the ability for granted until relatively late in life. I have excess creative energy that excites and frustrates in equal measure.
What time do you wake up (and why)?
I wake up before any alarms go off in the house, usually around 6 a.m. but it can be 5 a.m. For the past two years I’ve been waking up at the time my father died. He confounded everybody by living three weeks without sustenance beyond the day they expected him to die. I had sat all night with him the day he finally passed away. It was early morning in the care home and the day staff had just arrived. It was as if Dad took all the paraphernalia of the night including the medics and staff and all manner of other night creatures with him. Never has the contrast between the night and day been so stark for me. It was August and dawn had happened unnoticed behind the thick blackout curtains of his institutional room. Daylight seemed too sudden and the business of a new day too soon. It took me a couple of weeks to realise I was waking at the time of his death.
A similar thing had happened as a child after finding my elderly and ill grandmother passed away one morning. I’d gone in with her cup of tea and found her cold. For a couple of years after I would wake up suddenly at four fifteen every morning and stare at my door expecting someone to come in. My bedroom was always dark, being fitted with 1970s dark brown velvet curtains. My imagination ran wild and I wondered if maybe that had been the time she died.
Do you have a morning ritual?
On waking I always look first towards the natural light, which is usually a window. For several years we had a bedroom that faced north but I would leave the door ajar so that the morning light would fall through from a landing window on the other side of the house. I would look at this light rather than the window in the room and on a sunny morning the sunlight would be prettily refracted through an old cut-glass doorknob.