Kitabı oku: «Morning», sayfa 2

April

April 1

3.06 a.m.

The owl wakes me. An ancient-seeming sound in a busy urban street, disconnected almost from it. Lordly. Its call calls, if you will, summons me from sleep. I am here, it says, worth being awake for. I wonder who it talks to. Is there a sparse network of other owls? As a child I used to watch them fly by my window, spirits I saw. They talk in secrets, a lonely call as code. I am glad to wake and hear it before I go back to sleep for an hour, get up at 4.20 a.m., dress in the semi-dark. The blackbird kicks back in just gone five, a showier showing-off song. It fills the gardens. More comfortable, almost more middle class, sort of suburban.

By 5.50 a.m. I am at the allotment, the fruit trees are in blossom, the apple blossom ghost-lit in the gloom. The baby broad beans are darker-green shadows against the earth. The cardoons are rushing, the forget-me-nots are covering in carpets. It is not yet light. The sunrise catches chicory, like paper-wrapped red bunches of flowers. I sow a couple of rows of radish. I mostly sit and listen. Suddenly it is 7 a.m., time to buy fish and oranges, fresh bread for breakfast.

April 3

5.55 a.m.

Gathering thoughts and drinking tea, start of the week. Reading world news before 6 a.m. and back to yoga. It has been a while and feels like it. My hamstrings tell me. It is good to be back on the mat, my wife on my left. Her shoulder is bettering. We both groan a bit and grin. We salute the nearly there sun and stretch. We bend, we shape like cobras, we do spinal twists. We breathe consciously.

April 5

4.10 a.m.

The city almost sleeps, almost silence, just the background thrum of 10 million people breathing. By 5.05 a.m. sirens are screaming, birdsong is agitated, London is woke. Well, some of it; mostly me and the emergency crews, cops, paramedics mopping up last night’s emergencies, making today’s arrests.

April 6

5.25 a.m.

The owl appears to have moved into the churchyard. Its call as yet only tentative (I think it may be adolescent), it hands over at the end of its shift to the blackbirds. The bird of night and the bird of morning, outside my London window, calling the passing day, matins and vespers, the hours as holy service.

April 9

3.20 a.m.

Woken by a bright moon. The French windows wide open, it is quiet outside, just the spring morning cool creeping through. Swedes call this time Vargtimmen, the hour of the wolf: the time between night and dawn when the wild is said to be outside your door, usually thought to be between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. It is used to describe ‘an organism that is only active in the pre-dawn hours or early morning’, less likely wolves than bees now looking to escape competition for pollen. Some flowers, such as morning glory, have adapted to this practice. Increasingly it almost describes me.

April 13

3.40 a.m., Denmark

Even here on the Danish coast where the sun sets late and rises close to 4 a.m., it’s the blackbird that overrides sleep. Here is magic, he sings, forget your day job, your duties, here you too are like me, alive, awake, alert. I can almost hear the first sun hit the top leaf, see the gentle bathing, feel the day’s soft touch. The house is scented with summer lilac, picked from the path. Hedges of variations, a softened violet, churned with cream. The fragrance of Nordic summer, everywhere, dotted through every road. A punctuation of place. This is Denmark, it says, in a way the blackbird can’t with its universal sing-song.

The sun breaks through the branches at 4.10 a.m., a laser pulse of yellow light. Soon it catches doors, trees, casts watery shadows, branches are rewritten. The tall trees bathe in it like last night’s dew. This is the day’s first food. The oak warms, changes colour, shrugs off the gloom. Here is rejuvenation, renewal, refreshment. Fast now. Urgent. It runs through the leaves. The northern sun in its pomp, life-giving, nutritional, heat for the later harvest, sunlight for growth, for baby birds, for the blossom, bees. A pollination of the day, touching everything everywhere, moving on. Here I am part of the process, waiting to be lit. I gather thoughts, harvest them, scythe them down, rake them up, for compost, for pillows for picnics: green and sappy, to be dried and used later for fuel.

April 15

4.55 a.m.

A black and white light. Charred sheen on the terrace. Trees silhouetted, the wood a solid charcoal sketch. Blocks of near black for nearby houses. Almost total silence broken at 5.20 a.m. by birds. Suddenly they are all in song. I wonder how long they have been wondering whether to sing. A wall of sound, maybe a hedge, but no species dominant, all in full flow, bass treble, soprano sections. No long solos, every bird has its part. The rain like a percussion track taps on the metal chimney of the stove, lays down a back rhythm on the terrace. The fire joins in with a liquid roar, like wind, like waves.

Within half an hour the birds quiet, still singing but more sidetracked, as though they have things to do, babies to feed. The tunes change, become more reedy. The yellow flowering bush is lit, the monochrome filled in. Soft edges. Shadows. The grass a fat green brushstroke, more for the idea than the thing, no detail as yet, the mood of grass, a signal. White wood anemones almost shine in the meadow, perhaps a pearl necklace.

April 20

5.15 a.m., London

Slept in, late night. The back gardens are full of cats. The black-and-white Felix is the most fearless, the one who gets trapped in trees and on roofs. He is stalking another smaller, younger cat like him. The dog behind the fence makes a lunge as he passes. Both cats quickly disappear. A new tabby sits on a far elevated corner, looking down, studying its new world. The dominant black stalks the flat roof with a swagger.

This is the big cat-meeting place, four or more with their own corners, some like time-shares, the youngest sometimes looking to play or engage. They jump from roof to roof like Spiderman, walk long narrow fences like acrobats. Acutely aware of each other but mostly respectful. Except Felix. Within half an hour they have ducked away and disappeared through flaps in search of breakfast and sleep.

Eight crows suddenly sit in the tallest church tree, like an unsettling omen. An oddly quiet invasion. One launches and lazily leads five others away. A couple stay for some personal time.

April 21

4.10 a.m.

The church blackbird exultant as I lie awake. Sings for an hour, almost exactly, and stops. Moments later, another starts out the back (or is it the same bird on another boundary edge?). Within a few minutes, stereo, but both songs further away. All the while, the crescent moon, clear as day. By 5.20 a.m. I can see details, apple blossom, lilac, white windows. The sky is colouring over Canary Wharf.

April 26

5.05 a.m.

Blackbird of course, fast-moving clouds, cold. A kind of muddy tint to the sky. But it is light now. It feels like I am using fewer of my senses. My eyes greedily mop up all the information, my hearing less so. It’s as though I don’t ‘feel’ the invisible magic of the morning as much. The blossom is fading, the London lilac kicking in. Kala’s rose is blooming, the rosemary flowers are fading fast. The bees have moved on to more choices.

By 6.15 a.m. the dawn chorus is exhausted, Henri’s alarm goes off. The call for yoga. Ducks fly past in military formation, necks outstretched like fighter aircraft; they buzz the house, honking loudly. There is joy in the sound. Scraps of sky blue show through. A man in black stands smoking on a terrace. He looks left and right, sucks deeply. He is replaced by a woman. The question as to why they don’t smoke together is answered when they re-emerge together a few minutes later carrying their baby down the stairs.

April 27

4.35 a.m.

Three thunderous bangs rip me from sleep. Seismic. Did the house shake? It feels like an invasion, an attack on its foundations. My heart thumps. Was it a bomb, someone breaking in? Again, a series of thuds. Shouting! A woman’s voice. Fear and anger. It’s a door being attacked. A family trying to hold out. A man trying to get into his home. A partner determined to stop him. The door holds. He attacks, screams his frustration. She screams her rage. Neighbours appear on balconies. Disturbed. Concerned. Curious.

The police arrive. The shouting almost stops. For a while. An hour and a half later the cops are still there, some milling outside, fretful, stuck, perhaps bored. Most everyone else tries to sleep. It’s not the first time. Most of the police leave by 6.30 a.m. One stays, constantly on his phone until I go to work. Otherwise quiet.

April 28

4.22 a.m.

No bangs just maybe silence that woke me. There is something reassuring about being back awake in the half light, filling the teapot by sound, hearing the birds start to sing, seeing the pots of daisy and lily of the valley grey in the gloom. The blackbirds are more modest, part of a small band not a choir. One each, commanding front and back. At the moment, the church bird feels dominant. The first neighbouring light comes on at 5.19 a.m., mood subdued. An orange hue at daybreak, smothered by sunrise; all that is left is a pale peachy tone to the room.

My morning: Guy Grieve

First, could you tell me a little about yourself?

I’m a dive fisher for king scallops working from the Isle of Mull, Inner Hebrides, off the west coast of Scotland.

What time do you wake up (and why)?

I wake up just before or by dawn in time to get my boat and crew out to sea by first light. Dive fishing, swimming for king scallops underwater, is all about sharp sight. And so like all animals that rely on their eyesight to live I need as much of the day as possible. Sometimes I also need to get to sea early enough to allow for long journeys to remote reefs and coastlines where we hope to find scallops.

Do you have a morning ritual?

At home, on a dark winter’s morning with wind and rain invariably falling, I often lie quite still for a while judging from what direction the wind is blowing. An intimate chart of the waters that surround my island home unravels and I start to think about where we can risk taking the boat. I also almost always tell myself that the hardest part of the day is getting up.

Once the stove is lit, the boat’s kettle is set to boil as the engine warms and, sadly, tobacco is rolled as we huddle in the wheelhouse and decide which course to steer for the day.

How does being awake early affect your life?

I see things that enrich me. The deer moving up from the grass beside my loch to the higher ground. The greylag geese and their young sipping fresh water from the burn before returning to the foreshore. Herons finding their hunting stand for the morning and seals lumbering about on their precarious roosts amid rocks nearly awash. I’m allowed a glimpse of the wilderness around me waking. To get the fullness of a day is to be allowed more hours of life.

What time do you sleep?

When I’m working I try to be under covers by 10 p.m.

Does your sleep vary through the year?

In the summer, early light around 4 a.m. will make me turn over when I’m not diving. I have no curtains or blinds. In the winter I might sleep later, if the clock is not set, as light only comes at around 9 a.m.

Has your sleep pattern changed?

Two things in turn have messed with my sleep pattern. First children and after this, starting my own fishing business vanquished my early hours’ tranquillity.

Is the light important?

Light is everything. Dive fishing is a sharp-eyed game and light levels are vital, even in the winter when it’s so dark we don’t even see the seabed as we sink, until it hits us. In the winter our mornings are spent in darkness as we head to the boat and often as we steam out to the fishing grounds. Daylight is spent on the water and we return in darkness.

What do you like least about being awake early?

The sense that sleep has been relegated to a practical sphere and not allowed to become an indulgence.

What do you like best about being awake early?

It’s the world before mankind has fucked it up.

How would you sum up your thoughts on your mornings in 100 words or less?

The morning sets the mood of the day’s diving to come. My work is dominated by the sea and weather and so the mornings are a time of portent. I always look hard at the sky and think about wind strength and direction. One day I long to be woken by wind and rain hitting my window before dawn and for it to be OK. For there to be no need for me to pull myself out from shelter and into the weather. To just be able to sleep through it all and to wake when the comfortable people wake.

May

May 5

4.25 a.m.

Mackerel-skin sky on the horizon. It has been cloudy and cold for a week now, the first in May, not many breaks in daybreak. I close a window, shut out the chill to discover I have disturbed a silent bird. Sitting on the sill, two feet away, sharing the morning with me. By 5.05 a.m. the horizon is showing pale colour, warmer hues among the greys, almost a seascape. I am aware of the trees on the skyline in a way I wasn’t much before. More confident, more assertive. Sunrise clears the sky by 6 a.m., almost a different day.

May 7

3.45 a.m., International Dawn Chorus Day

BBC Radio 4 is broadcasting birdsong throughout the night, following dawn as it journeys from India. Thousands of people around the world are joining in group events. The only London gathering is far away south and I want my chorus uninterrupted by crowds.

I am at the allotment at 4.10 a.m., passing three teenagers heading home, a man with a walking stick walking his dog. At the gates of the allotments, the birds on the street-lit borders are already wide awake. An owl calls from deep in the woods. Tulips are picked out in the electric light from the stairs. Bamboo structures stand out in the creeping light.

By 4.25 a.m. the blackbird calls from the wooded corner. Song surrounds me now. I record for the record, occasionally tuning into the radio for the bitterns and geese on the marsh. By 4.40 a.m. the white tulips loom in natural light. Crows cross the breaking sky. By 4.50 a.m. the first pigeon coos and I can see my writing for the first time. The silhouettes are stronger. By 5 a.m. the crows are croaking and the blackbirds are darting on the ground. A woman is singing in a wetland on Radio 4.

I sit contented for another hour, connected by the joy of dawn to twitchers, insomniacs and other early risers.

May 11

5.25 a.m.

Late night, later morning, though up in time to catch the sunrise. The sky is crisp, clear, dissected by a single jet streak pointing east. The morning doesn’t mind I am later, waiting, patient, like a school friend or pet to see if I want to play. It is almost an acceptance. Time is (of course) indifferent. But in the way that I believe land can recognise me, plants grow for me, share a relationship, then it is not hard to extend that to morning: a welcome there if you want it, an acknowledgement perhaps. Clearer communication, an energy shift, like a space that has just been cleaned, a screen that has been wiped, a body freshly bathed. Sun shines. It is early summer. A police siren calls.

May 13

12.30 a.m.

Woken by cramp and late chocolate. I lie an hour listening to Henri’s regular breathing. By 2.05 a.m. a lone gull circles, its plaintive call echoed by an owl. At 2.30 a.m. I get up, make tea and peace with the night. I decide to test an earlier dawn chorus. To map the morning. At 3.19 a.m. a cat growls. A neighbouring light goes out. Someone’s decided it’s time to sleep. I wash and dress. It’s the weekend, I will likely nap later. The sky is slightly red, the rooftop daisies a ball of almost white in almost light but early bird call calls.

I phone a cab to the allotment. No time to walk. There is no one around. All quiet.

Plot, 3.37 a.m., silence, just trees rustling, a distant car. I passed only two others in two miles. There is no active animal life. Just me. I will sow flower seed before I leave. A first, dawn sowing. There is a rusty sound like a sign swinging.

The first call comes at 3.49 a.m. It is halting, almost whispered. Tiny, tentative. There is no answer. At 3.53 a.m. I hear the first song; 3.55 a.m. the first response. An owl calls back at 3.57 a.m. and there are now four birds in play. It is light enough to wander around. The blackbird sings at 4.07 a.m., then the first follows from the unlit wood. A train calls, lonesome; a motorbike accelerates. The bird call moves closer from darker trees. A small cloud of crows join in.

It is light enough to sow. I move tear peas from the nursery bed. I lay out five short rows for seed. I sow red Tagetes Ildkonge in memory of my brother. Because I love him and them. I sow yellow summer squash to spill down the bank.

I sit and soak in shifts in light and song. I absorb the almost quiet. Dawn bathing, I call it. Natured. Nurtured. Energy-topped like late sun on a beach, a morning walk on moorland, sitting by a stream. I charge. Refill my battery. Still my heart.

Before 6 a.m. I leave for the fishmonger. He is boiling crabs outside. He grins, says he has been thinking about me and a Mrs Levy. It’s the first sea trout of the year, he says. I buy his fish and samphire. Dinner will taste of summer. I walk past the scavenging pigeons sorting through fox-spilled bin bags. Fixated, they ignore me as I pass. The good greengrocer down the hill is setting out his stall. I buy three white peaches. Home before seven, I have slept an hour but feel refreshed.

May 21

4.40 a.m.

Back in my London bed after being in Sweden for a few days. The familiar blackbird wakes me, the pull of the call of passing geese. Blue sky, crows, clouds, thin and windswept like the American President’s hair. The moon is a white crescent. I yearn for the allotment, to see the baby beans. It is still only early spring in Sweden: apple blossom budding, cascades of spring bulbs, wild lilies breaking through grass pathways in the botanical gardens, peonies weeks away. Light, though, is there before 4 a.m., still insistent after 10 p.m. The ground cold for growing.

The London sun’s up by 5.30 a.m., catching alliums on the kitchen table. London is lit and quiet, nothing much stirring except me and the birds. There is a delicious melancholy sometimes in being awake on your own, moving almost silently, slowly, your thoughts louder in the ether. Feelings unrequited.

May 22

4.33 a.m.

The sky streaked dusty pink. The moon hangs barely there like a balloon caught in firelight as it passes. My heart lifts when I wake, like seeing an old friend. There is a comfort in walking around in soft light, an accepting quiet place for thoughts. I have missed these moments, the call of the moon, an allure like a souk stall, perfumed, kohled eyes calling. Join me, it says, move and think and feel freely, unencumbered by the day and life.

For me at least there is poetry here, a quiet rhythm to the day I can hear. A sun salutation. I was at the allotment late, stirring horn manure, a biodynamic dusk preparation, the sister light to this, a slight sigh, a release, an exhale. The earth is warmer now, the day’s light longer, the sowing eager to grow. The same energy is here in dawn. An urgency, joyful, the romance of the day, a siren singing, as though you may have lost the ability to need only air to breathe, developed gills, swimming in different waters, free to float, drift, wash up on wilder shores.