Before The Dawn

     The other morning I had to take a friend to the hospital for surgery. She had to be there at 5am, so I was on the road to her place at 4:15. It felt weird driving at that time of the morning, at least driving completely sober and well rested. In my life experience, driving at that time usually meant that I was on my way home from a long night out. I hadn’t been in that situation for over a decade, so while the feeling was one of some vague familiarity, it also had the weird sensation of being strange and new.
     Obviously, you notice that there are less people on the roads. Almost no one is on the road in the residential areas you drive through, but it’s even the same on the highways. It’s always strange in those early hours of the morning when you’re on what’s normally a very busy highway, but there are only a set of tail lights way off in front of you that you can barely make out, and far off headlights behind you that barely register in the rearview mirror. If you get to a bend in the road, you can’t see either, and it’s like you’re alone in a long expanse of deserted road.
     The city streets are empty as well. On the way over to her house, I didn’t really pay that much attention to it. It was early, and I was still shaking the sleep off and trying to focus on driving. I am not a morning person, and unless it’s the aforementioned situation of still being up from the night before, I am definitely not a very early morning person. I picked her up, and took her to the hospital, dropped her off, and then headed back home to get a little more sleep and wait for them to call and give me a time when I could pick her back up and take her home.
     As I started the drive home, I decided to take the long way, and go directly through the city streets. I didn’t know when I would have the chance again to experience the city while it was still asleep, and see small parts of it just starting to wake up.
     The first thing I noticed was that some of the places that used to be open for 24 hours like convenience stores and gas stations, and even the supermarket, are now closed at night. Just one more thing the pandemic has changed.
     I got stuck behind a garbage truck. Apparently that never changes. Garbagemen are still working on these cold dark mornings. I was annoyed for a split second that I had to wait to get around them, but I quickly checked myself. It’s funny how you are conditioned in so many ways. Whenever I have to come to a stop for garbage trucks, delivery trucks, school buses, construction, even briefly, I get instantly irate. I often think to myself that they should do that stuff at night, when people aren’t on the roads, and I realized that these garbagemen were doing just that. Besides, I purposely took the long way so I could meander and experience the city at dawn, so what was my hurry? The world has conditioned us to expect instant gratification and view any tiny inconvenience as unacceptable. I did that thing where I had the same minor epiphany where I realized that I had to work on readjusting my head and get some realistic expectations. Then I instantly forgot it when I came to a red light at a completely deserted intersection, and spent my time waiting for the light to change by grousing about how they should have some kind of sensor so the lights would change for the lone person waiting to go.
     I didn’t notice any buses running, but it was only a little past five, so it might have been too early. I did see some people here and there walking on the sidewalks. When you see people out at 3am in the city, your first instinct might be to wonder what they are up to. Maybe I just spent too much of my life around drunks and drug addicts and dealers and other seedy characters to have an objective viewpoint, but I always assume something illegal or at least a little shady is going on. Not that I care. That’s one of the things I like about the city. I like that there’s a slightly nefarious underbelly to it.
     Thing is, it was 5am, so I realized that most people I saw walking in the early morning winter chill on a Wednesday were probably on their way to work or somewhere normal and above board. I reflected on how privileged my life was that it could take me a moment to comprehend that not everyone has a car or works a regular nine to five job. I should be painfully aware of that, because for 12 years or so in the 80’s and 90’s, I had a job like that. I used to work for a construction company, and I had to start work at 6am, sometimes earlier. I also lived 90 minutes away from where I worked, so I was usually on the road a little after 4am. That’s when I first noticed those long stretches of empty highway. In some ways, it was a very peaceful feeling, but many days it fueled my anxiety. These were the days before everyone had cell phones, and if I broke down or had an accident in the middle of nowhere, I was stuck. It was best not to think about it, but every time the car made a weird noise or the engine stuttered for a second, your mind started racing.
     I also got to experience the early morning city thing. I worked in Paterson, NJ, which was not the best neighborhood. You crushed crack vials under your feet as you walked into the yard at work, and I had my car broken into multiple times while it was parked on the street in front of work, even in broad daylight. I was accustomed to seeing people still hanging out on street corners at 5am, dealing drugs, hooking, whatever. There were times I had to go to construction jobs in NYC that started at 6am, so I was driving through the streets in the five boroughs at 4 or 5am.
     The difference between Manhattan at 5am and the small Pennsylvania city of Allentown is pretty striking. New York never sleeps, so even at 5am, there was a lot of stuff going on. People were in and out of the bodegas and liquor stores at that time, diners were serving breakfast and late night snacks for drunks, bakeries and bagel shops were opening and flooded the streets with delicious aromas. Taxis were dropping people off and picking people up, or simply tearing up and down the streets faster than they should. Life was generally carrying on. I used to love that time in New York, that mixture of people just starting their day and others just finishing their’s. It was still the city, but it wasn’t as hectic and congested. You rarely saw anyone in a business suit at that hour. You saw some people still dressed up, because they had been out all night, or were making that walk of shame. The thing about the city is that no one seemed ashamed about it anyway. The city takes on a different character at night, and when the sun starts coming up, you see it slowly change back into its daytime skin.
     Now, at dawn on a Wednesday in Allentown, that transformation was happening as well. The convenience stores and gas stations were opening, and traffic was starting to pick up. I saw a bus pulling over at its stop to let a sole passenger get on. As I parked in front of my apartment complex, I noticed people getting in their cars to head off to work. I saw a mother bundling her small kids into the car, probably to drop them off at daycare before she went to work. I saw some people walking their dogs, which had probably whined and danced at their sleepy owners because they had to go to the bathroom after a night’s sleep. I heard the birds chirping, and reminisced how that sound usually meant that I had stayed up all night partying, and signaled the beginning of regret.
     As I walked into my apartment, I was thinking about all of this. I had planned to come home and go right back to bed, and wait for the phone call from the hospital to wake me up and tell me to come back and pick up my friend, but now I rethought that strategy. I was up, and wide awake now. Maybe I would go for a walk down at the park, then come home and cook a big breakfast. Maybe I could get a jump on some of the stuff I had to do today.
     Maybe I was a morning person after all.

Morning Walk

Shortly after waking up today, I had one of those rare stretches where I really felt like giving up. It's been a rough year, for all of us, and the last few days have been like one gut punch after another. So I went for another walk in the woods, half thinking that it will either clear my mind or give me a good place for them to find my body (jk; sort of). At any rate, it didn't clear my mind, but I'm still here, so that's something positive, right? Even though it didn't bring me any epiphanies or calming inner peace, it gave me time to think about the thing that always brings me back to who I am: the people I love. I thought about friends and family who are always there for me. I thought about the people who depend on me. I thought about people I know who are dealing with a lot more than I am. I thought about a lot of the good things that are still left in the world, even if some of them are out of my reach right now. Plus, I saw some birds. They were small, and sort of bluish, and they were flitting among the branches of the saplings lining the path as I walked. They were staying a little ahead of me, but still checking me out and pacing me along the trail. I talked to them a little as I walked, and I didn't feel so alone and hopeless anymore. I realized I lived in a world where I could walk among the trees while tiny dinosaurs flitted and chirped all around me, and I decided I still want to keep trying and see how it all plays out…