I am an early riser. That is not a valued trait in a city filled with people who regularly stay up ’til 2 or 3 am or later and who live in homes that come with heavy shutters and deep rooms that close out the light of day.
What you notice if you share the affliction of dawn rising syndrome is that there are a goodly number of people also out at 6 a.m. on a Monday or 7 a.m. on a Sunday. They are mostly working people or parents of young children or senior citizens (well besides the runners who avoid contact with us lower-level humans).
Men slowly biking with blue service shirts with names sewn on the front. A woman zigzagging to the neutral ground with a sleeping baby at her shoulder, heading to the corner store. Seniors sitting quietly at the bus stop, thinking. The people washing the sidewalks of the Quarter or dropping off the bread seem like me in more important ways than those usually considered by census takers or sociologists. After all, on a day-to-day basis, why allow ourselves to be counted with those because of the same hue of skin or shuffled into line based on a shared birthplace of grandparents or great-grandparents or decide where and with whom to socialize relying on which diploma each of us gained long ago? Isn’t one of my real tribes the people who share the feeling of finishing hours of tasks only to look at the clock to see it is only 9 am? Who go to bed at such a scandalous time that we refrain from telling others? Those that get to see the streaks of dawn across the sky and the dew on the grass?
Dear morning people, I salute you all and will do so again bright and early tomorrow.