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Being a
Nighthawk has its benefits
by Lynda Pogue
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I’m a
night person, so getting up early, with the sun and the birds,
just doesn’t cut it when you’ve gone to sleep at 2:00 (A.M.).
I love working/painting/writing/researching/musing in the
quiet hours. I have a few buddies who are the same. One
laughingly said “I woke up at 6:00 in the morning yesterday. I
was in shock. Hey…. Did you know that there are two 6 o’clocks
in the day?” Another said, “I love getting up at the crack of
ten!”
Cheery
morning people’s eyes seem to cross when I tell them about a
glorious discovery I had with a new painting at 1:30 in the
morning. (For any artists who are reading this…. You need to
buy an Ott-Light to simulate daylight. Very cool.) And… guess
who’s a real morning person. My darling husband.
So,
while on our summer sojourn to the East Coast (If you haven’t
gone yet, you’ve gotta experience Lunenburg, Chester,
Halifax…… ahhhhhh those fresh lobster and drawn butter
dinners.) and being away from the ever-beckoning computer and
telephone, we got a little more in sync with our waking and
sleeping states. Having the magnificent surf crashing about 4
metres from the end of our bed really helped because one tends
to be aware of the tides. Somehow it gets right into the ebb
and flow of the blood in your body.
Anyway, we got more in sync timewise. Then there was the quiet
night of the full moon with THE MOST AMAZING 3 layers of
clouds producing a moonbow (I called it that. It was a full
360 degree rainbow at midnight!) with a bazillion boundless
silver twinkles dancing across the ocean coming in a straight
line right to me and into all the tidal pools just outside our
rental cottage. There was NO WAY I could sleep. I wrapped
myself up in a squishy white duvet, grabbed the binocs and sat
on the deck all night long watching the moon move from one
side of the world to another. Every once in a while, all those
soft layers of shadowed clouds would part in one part of the
sky and infinity presented itself with the never-ending stars
…and then another time,
the
man and the woman in the moon watched over me (If you’ve never
seen the woman in the moon, she’s in profile looking to your
left. She’s the right half of the man’s face. Seriously
beautiful). The only sounds were the lapping of the waves in
front of me and my husband’s occasional snores through the
screen door behind me.
How
could I not give myself over to that experience? It’s just in
my nature to get all caught up in the physicality and
awesomeness of whatever the night presents. Morning people
have their own joys that night people miss. But it works both
ways.
p.s. I convinced my husband to stay up for a few extra hours
the next night while the moon was showing off again. Then on
the following few days we got back in sync again. Waking and
sleeping about the same times. Such is the life of a Nighthawk
married to a Morning Person.
I
love the Yin-Yang. The balance. Never boring!
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