After Midnight

Past Midnight? Are any of you up past midnight?

I am a woman who goes to bed at nine-thirty most nights. Even on the rare occasion we have overnight guests I'll often excuse myself early to settle in and read and go to sleep. I love the comfort of an early night. I like the sound of voices in the living room as I go off to sleep.

A while ago my husband went to a hockey game with some friends. I was asleep and they arrived home and came in for a visit. I heard them and I went down stairs to say hi still in my house coat. No makeup and a messy head of hair. I was happy to see them. 

I put out some cheese and crackers and we had a visit. The conversation was easy and fun and we talked and talked. When they got up to go we looked at the the time and it was 2 a.m. Now at one time 2 a.m. was a possibility for me but not recently. We all laughed because we knew they were all, including my husband, night owls and I was a morning bird. It was the first time I had been up that late for years. Maybe twenty years ago at a party I was up that late but it had been a long time. And it felt good to be disrupted, to have my routine turned on its head. 

I am great at sneaking out of parties early. 

Most times I do the Irish Goodbye, where you leave a party without saying a word to anyone. I like this because it does not disturb the party or make anyone else feel like they should be leaving. I will thank the host the following day. 

I never like to sacrifice the day for the night. Because my days are full of things I love. I love the light of the early morning. The 6 am sun rises. The stillness of the house. The birds waking up. There is so much beauty in the morning.

My sister is a night owl. Honestly, you could go to bed at her house and wake up and the kitchen would be a different colour. She has in fact stayed up until two in the morning and painted her kitchen. She finds the night gives her energy.

And the conversations we have late at night are often tender and important. I have often laid in bed and talked to a friend across the room, or even across the hall until we both fell into the shadow of sleep. "Words fell," as Lucinda Williams sang. And in the morning we knew each other all the better for it.

There is the night, and it can be good too. But I have chosen the morning as my time. It is my time to begin again, and so I forgo the falling stars and the moonlight for the mist rushing over the trees and the sun tinting the sky. 

But occasionally I surprise myself. Sometimes I am charmed by the dark and I am up, like JJ Cale sang,  "After midnight."