Four in the Morning, Again

Four or three times a week I’m awake at 4am, either sitting at my desk, bent over my notebook, writing, or scribbling as some say, stopping only to sharpen my stub of a pencil, the sharper the better to catch the cascade of words in my head, and get them down on the page in some sort of order, and I’m lost in my work, which is to say I’m happy, worried only I’ll soon sharpen my pencil out of service.

If not at my desk on these 4am mornings, maybe because I’ve already been sat there most of the night looking at a blank page, desperately searching for a beginning, a word, something, and I’ve put down the pencil, put on a coat, and I’m out walking, letting go of purpose, sometimes with the happy, barking dog, sometimes not, step after step, thinking about everything, all at once, until I’m not, and I’m just walking, lost in it, happy, just slightly wondering if I’ll forget where I live, again.

Often these early walks take me to the beach, and I sit in the dark, with nothing to be scared of but the cold, and sometimes I think I’d rather be home, with the lights and heating on, but the beach is the best place I know to watch the world wake up, and when enough light comes in so I can see the sea, it makes everything ok, and it’s all I can do to stop the ideas and words from tumbling out of my head before I get home and can get them down.