Good Morning! I love that phrase because, if you can bear to let them be themselves, mornings are always good. I seem to have forgotten that in college. Dragging myself out of bed has always been hard, but now I find it impossible to be cheerful until my second class is over. Sometimes it takes longer–till after I’ve completed my daily pilgrimage to Pew to practice cello. I get up, go breakfast with Liesel, and sometimes even have a fresh omelet with spinach and salsa, for goodness sakes, and still wish I were back in bed. It didn’t used to be like that. I used to be mildly annoying with my morningness, I think. In highschool I would appear in the hall sometime between 7:30 and 7:45. “Good morning, Good morning, dear, Good morning, darling, hello, hello, *chatter chatter chatter* My brother threw the cat after breakfast!” I would get long stares from darling and dear, and occasionally an, “Ugh, I’m tired.” Now, that is precisely what I say to the girls on each side of me in my eight-o-clock class, then we nod at each other, slow and mournful.

Of course, I have never been a night person. At all. Any time I am with people after ten o’clock or so, I tend to receive kind questions about the state of my health, mental and otherwise, because of the defeated way I stare at the opposite wall. I don’t mean to. I think it’s just the product of my mind shutting down to dream state without my eyes doing the same. (Though the other night during intervis in a guys’ dorm I did fall asleep on someone’s bed. Apparently my friend Becca woke me up, and asked whether I wanted her to take me home, and I told her, “No, of course not,” and went back to sleep.)

But then again, I think it is possible to find a way to love every minute of my day. Nights are dances and loud, friendly coloring parties and crazy escapades. For me, they are for people-watching, long thinks, and good conversations. The best entertainment comes after eleven, anyway. The other night I watched from my window at about one as a not-quite-couple said a long and  secretly reluctant good-bye. It took them fifteen minutes and was funnier than most movies I’ve seen recently. And while it’s true that mornings are only sometimes bright, they are always, always new. Your exam could be cancelled, you could win the lottery, or you could even find that magical “noreply” email in your inbox which says, “You have received a package. Please report to the mailroom to collect it at your earliest convenience.  You must present your College ID to do so.” What’s the word for morning again? Oh, yes, possibility… or maybe just faërie.