Before dawn, they're headed to work

It's dark now at 5:45 a.m. as my wife and I begin our daily, 30-minute walk. At the neighborhood meeting last night, a number of residents expressed concern about the inadequacy of street lights and dark shadows along some stretches of the neighborhood streets. Although there are some areas that are darker than others, I haven't found the darkness to be that much of a problem. Nor have we been bothered by the speeding or reckless drivers some residents complained about last night. At 5:45 to 6:15, we have the streets pretty much to ourselves.

There are a few walkers and runners along the dim streets, and a handful of cars, too. We wear light-colored clothing and walk on the left so we'll be visible in the headlights of oncoming cars. Thus far, I've forgone the reflective vest that hangs beside the dog's leash and the flashing red clip-on light my son gave me years ago when I sometimes jogged in the dark. On the Ides of September, the sky is dark and the stars are bright, and the streets are mostly vacant.

What has surprised me the most in the several months we've been taking this morning walk is the number of people who are up and leaving for work before 6 a.m. For years, I awoke at 5:30 and left for the office before 7 a.m., and I thought I was the Early Bird. Relatively few people were on the roads at that hour, and most houses I passed had cars still parked in the driveway. But on my morning walks now, I see a fair number of people leaving home before 6, starting their day long before the sun rises. The eastern horizon is just beginning to show a rosy glow at that hour, and stars are still clearly visible. Most houses are dark. I'm guessing that most of these early risers are commuters, headed to Raleigh or Greenville or some more distant workplace, but a few are just getting an early start on the work day, beating the staff to the office and getting ahead of the game.

These are the Morning People, the types who are too eager to stay in bed or are too energized by the prospects of the day to let their mind rest until dawn. When I applied for a job as editor of a morning paper (with a workday that began in the afternoon and ended after midnight) more than 30 years ago, I was asked if I was a night person or a morning person. I responded that I thought a person trained himself to be the type he needed to be in the circumstances, and that's largely true. But I found I really missed the morning when I came home from work at 2 a.m. and slept until 10 or 11. The early morning is such a quietly refreshing and invigorating time, an ideal time to walk the dog and watch your neighbors head off to work earlier than you'd ever imagined.

An earlier alarm, a nice morning walk

I reset my alarm clock this morning, from 6 a.m. to 5:30. When I was laid off last fall, I decided I could sleep in 30 minutes longer, with no more mandates to be dressed and at my desk at 7 a.m. My wife, who had been rising after I stepped out of the shower, did not have to be at work so early, so a later alarm setting would work fine for us in our new reality.

But finding time to exercise had become more and more difficult for her. Working longer and longer hours, she rarely left work early enough to go by the gym, go for a run or pop an exercise video into the DVD player. (During  the time when I was working until 6:30 or 7 p.m. and she got off at a more reasonable hour, I would come home each night to find her in the spare room working up a sweat in front of the TV.) She decided at last that the only way she would get exercise would be to do it early in the morning; thus, today we went back to a 5:30 wake-up call and a half-hour of brisk walking.

I once swore I'd never get up so early ever again. Spoiled by the life of a not-too-dedicated college student accustomed to awaking at 8:30 to make a 9 o'clock class, I found the 5:45 reveille at Officer Candidate School 35 years ago way too early for sensible people. I swore I'd never get up so early again, and I was able to keep that promise for a while. But working for an afternoon newspaper, which gathers its news primarily in the early morning, I found myself setting the alarm at 5:30 to make that 7 a.m. appointment with my desk.

Being laid off has given me an opportunity to enjoy the morning instead of rushing through it in a mad dash to the office. A 35-minute walk through the neighborhood streets, accompanied by an ever-eager dog, is splendidly pleasant this time of year. At 5:45, the sun is still below the horizon, but the light is soft and clear. The neighborhood is quiet, and few houses have lights shining through windows. A few walkers are up and about at this hour, but the neighborhood is serene in the subdued light. By the time our circle is complete, the sun is peeking through the tall pines, casting spotlights on houses and lawns.

I don't know how long we'll continue this routine. A job offer could change my life again as much as a layoff did last fall. And 5:45 will not always be so luminous. Daylight will peak in three weeks, the begin its long decline toward December. When the daylight shortens and blustery cold arrives, these early morning walks will not be so pleasant. Morning rains will fall from time to time. But for now, we'll enjoy the dawn and the quiet solitude of a neighborhood just beginning to awaken.