Nothing is nicer than waking up in the cool dark of the early morning to make a fire in the fire place and read or write for awhile before the world wakes up. I turn on the classical radio station I’ve been listening to my entire life, and let the cats in or out, then out or in again. At least two - usually three or four - hot beverages make their way into my mug.
If you’re wondering how many hot beverages one can possibly drink in the morning, especially because I’m avoiding coffee right now (not because I want to avoid coffee, but because my poor, beleaguered adrenals demand it), allow me to share the mania. I drink two cups of winter support tea with elderberry, rosehips, and ginger every day during the cold months. I usually have some form of cacao, either the basic version tossed into the little electric beverage heater-blender thing that’s essential when you’re as devoted to hot drinks as I am or the fancy version with cacao, dark chocolate, maple syrup, reishi powder, cinnamon, and cayenne. Then of course there’s tea, I’m digging peppermint right now, bought loose from Petaluma Coffee & Tea Company. And finally, as a symbol that it’s time to start being productive, the herbal coffee substitute I make using Lizzie’s recipe.
I need a lot of quiet time to myself and so the early mornings are sacred. Not sacred enough to set an alarm or anything but my inherited body clock wakes me up between four and five am everyday, like it or not. This worried me for awhile, until my mom told me that my dad used to wake up at four every morning and my brother does too. She was the only one in the family who escaped the relentlessly early mornings. Whenever I manage to sleep until six or even seven in the morning, it’s like a choir of angels descends from the heavens to sing hallelujahs over my head while I revel in the fact that it’s light and I haven’t already been awake for three or four hours.
But that’s not what happened today. Today, I get a fire and cats and cacao and blogging before I start my day. Maybe tomorrow will be one of those wildly blessed days of sleeping til actual dawn. We can only hope.