the magic of midnights
A few FB folks recently posted this article and it got me thinking how, despite the tyranny of early-rising advice in media, I was lucky to have figured out I was never meant for 9-5 life. This is not to say I wasn't mean for an 8 hour/ 5 days kind of work (though longer is pushing it) but more that when the hours fell was key. Since around 2000, I have been fortunate to have worked a job where my late to bed / late to rise lifestyle was actually useful in a second shift capacity, where the library, during regular semesters, closes at 10pm. It's a a shift people always seem to surprised to hear I actually desire and like, yet I miss it terribly when we close earlier.
My mom always talked about what a well-slept baby I was. While my dad worked early, she stayed home when I was really young, so apparently not only did I sleep the night, but sometimes as late as noon. When I remember school, I just remember that I was never quite as rested and sharp as I could have been. Summers, during high school and college were my golden time, when not only could I sleep as late as desired, but could also stay up late reading or writing or watching the one good tv in the house. When possible in college, I'd stick to afternoon classes, then be on campus pretty late for rehearsals. In grad school when I got my MA, most of my classes were in the evenings (designed for people with jobs, which outside of brief Starbucks stint, I was living on loans and credit cards.) The year and a half that I worked at the elementary school was an anomaly, but I remember coming home at 3 and sleeping for a couple hours to even function in the evenings and actually be awake for dinner. Again, basically always tired all the time. I was relieved when, at Columbia after a few months, the night-shifter gave up the late shift and I could take it. I've been in it ever since. Even still, on weekends or when we were working at home for covid, I creep toward starting my day later and later, to staying up later and later.
So much advice on productivity hinges on that early-rise. But I would argue that I trade my late-rising for productivity under the cover of night. I am my most energetic and able to concentrate in late afternoons. Have my best creative brain from around 6-10pm. When I get home after work, I usually will eat dinner and watch or listen to something while working til I go to bed around 2 (this changes a bit during the academic year, and I flip flop my routine to doing press things in the first couple hours of my day instead of the last. ). There is something rebellious and illicit feeling about being productive while the world sleeps. In summers, I occasionally see sunrise, thought it's from the other side.
I have benefitted productivity-wise from writing first thing in the morning when my head is clearer and less cluttered, but my "first thing" is actually around 10am. Until 2018, I tried to write at night before bed if nothing else, but many times, it didn't happen. I'd be too tired, or my head to filled with other things that had happened. There is a certain magic to the first hour of the day, whenever that is. It could be 10 am, or it could be 2pm if I've stayed up til sunrise. Lately, I've been showering and getting ready, making coffee, and then writing, but sometimes I do just go straight to my laptop and get something out of my head and then get on with the usual business of the day. Late nights are for other things--I've been known to build webpages and layout chapbooks at midnight. When working at home during covid's early days of lockdown, write grant & project proposals until the wee hours because I was on a roll and didn't want to stop (though my primary beef with work-from-home was a lack of boundaries, though this was entirely my fault.)
In ordinary-life things, there is a certain feeling of accomplishment in closing out the bar (2am or 4am) In late night movie dates where you are the only two people in the theater. In midnight tacos and all-night diners. I forget the non-urban world that falls asleep at 9pm. and am a little surprised outside the city that nothing ever seems to be open past 10. When I was in college for that semester in NC, we would go out to the beach watch the sun rise over the Atlantic with the fishermen just setting up, then crawl into bed for a few hours before stumbling to class. Later, back in the midwest, rehearsals til midnight and coffee at the Denny's across the road from campus (theatre people are always vampires). Even now, just the introverts paradise of not many people out and about when I am moving around in it. The city at night is my favorite city--all lit up and glimmering. In some ways, it's less safe obviously, but I am always vigilant and aware of my surroundings. Most of the crazy interactions and moments of danger i have felt in this city have been in broad daylight.
So here's to all the late risers and midnighters who get no respect in a world of early birds (I could also write a blog entry in the tyranny of extroverts, but we'll save that for later...)
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