What art thou that usurps't this time of night?

 I've found transcendent inner peace.

The problem is that you can only get it at 4 in the morning.

I had a nice two week stretch of almost no evening concerts/rehearsals, and J and I both flipped our sleep schedules around so that we were in bed before 9 and getting up early. Very early.

We've been setting our alarms for 5:30, and I actually ended up downstairs at more like 4:30 most of last week. It's dark, cold, and completely silent.

It's amazing. There are no children around anywhere. No one is actively making any messes. I don't need to adjudicate any disputes over football card ownership. No one is spilling anything. No one is shouting. No one is banging away at Axel F on the piano. 

(We did the Kirkin' of the Tartan at church last week, and when I heard the bagpipes start to wheeze up I realized that I was expecting to hear Axel F. I've formed a conditioned response to obnoxiously loud noise and that lick.)

I pull an Americano, read the psalms for the day, and then write, read, and draw in my notebook. I do composition exercises in French and Greek. I sometimes pull on a coat and boots and see what planets are up outside with my telescope. I learn things about the moon, birds, plants, grammar, anatomy, Hebrew, and geology. The sheer silence is like soaking in a hot bath, even though it is very much the opposite of hot from my chair by the library window in mid-November.

A few nights ago I woke up and realized it was 3:30. I turned back over to go to sleep and then thought to myself--"I could read for an extra two hours if I got up now."

And I did. It's not at all like reading once the kids are in bed. They've used me up by that point. I can still think, but my ears are full of their noise and storm.

In the dark hours of the morning there hasn't been a single sound made yet, except for the grinding of beans and the hiss of the kettle.

J is loving it too. (Well, she doesn't love it, but she loves having her workout done before she sees any children.) We eat breakfast together and no one complains about the food or spills it down their front or uses their shirt as a napkin.

And then someone appears. (It's always Owen.) And he plays his morning Axel F. And we're happy to see him. I think we're more ready for him when we've had the quiet hours before he came down, and not after.

I don't think we can keep this up. I'm going to be playing too many concerts when I won't even get home until 11 or midnight.

But I think I am officially a morning person...