daily dawns – summer, winter, spring, and fall — I’m a fool to rise at all!
Daily dawns another day; I must up, to make my way. Though I dress and drink and eat, Move my fingers and my feet, Learn a little, here and there, Weep and laugh and sweat and swear, Hear a song, or watch a stage, Leave some words upon a page, Claim a foe, or hail a friend— Bed awaits me at the end.
Though I go in pride and strength, I’ll come back to bed at length. Though I walk in blinded woe, Back to bed I’m bound to go. High my heart, or bowed my head, All my days but lead to bed. Up, and out, and on; and then Ever back to bed again, Summer, Winter, Spring, and Fall— I’m a fool to rise at all!
Inscription for the Ceiling of a Bedroom by Dorothy Parker as published in Enough Rope (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1926).
This from the woman who famously would yell What Fresh Hell is This? anytime the phone rang.
Try that at work some day, I betcha!
High my heart, or bowed my head.
All my days but lead to bed.
I just wish I wouldn’t start thinking about it an hour after I get to work.
I mean, if I went right home and went to bed when I wanted to, I would miss my after dinner nap.
I start looking forward to that as soon as I get up each day.
caffeine does its best the first hit in the morning when you’re at your worst
In the health column, We Ask the Experts …, in the New York Times, writer Simar Bajaj took on the question, “Can Coffee Really Boost Your Mood?”
Mr. Bajaj writes:
“Caffeine does its best mood boosting when you’re in some sort of deficit,” said Laura Juliano, the chair of psychology at American University, whether that’s being sleep deprived, pushing through a tough work project or running behind your usual cup of coffee. “The first hit in the morning is probably the most reinforcing because that’s when you’re at your worst,” she added.
But experts say that the brain adapts to regular caffeine consumption, making you less responsive to its effects over time. So, among regular coffee drinkers, the mood lift might just be relief from withdrawal symptoms, like fatigue and headaches, Dr. Juliano said. Your daily coffee might just bring you back to normal, but moving out of a slump still feels satisfying, she added.
However, getting a bona fide mood boost is probably limited to occasional coffee drinkers, Dr. Juliano said, since they likely haven’t built up the same tolerance to caffeine.
I dislike getting up in the morning and readers of this blog know that.
I like my coffee in the morning.
I get it ready the night before.
Fill the coffee maker with water.
Spoon on the coffee.
I have to be careful as I will do this just before I go to bed and the smell of the ground coffee can be a pick-me-up just when I want a calm-me-down.
I set the alarm and the next morning wake up before the alarm goes off.
I stare at the red numbers of the clock and here the clug clug clug of the coffee maker kicking in.
It’s new day and all that means and I am at my worst.
I don’t want to get up.
I want the oblivion of sleep.
To sleep perchance to dream.
But the clock doesn’t stop moving into the day and on the days I need to drive onto the Island to work, I got to get going or be stuck in traffic on a bridge the United States Corps of Engineers refuses to certify as ‘safe to use’ (and I am not making that up).
Showered up and first cup of coffee in hand, I take that first sip.
Experts say that the brain adapts to regular caffeine consumption, making you less responsive to its effects over time. So, among regular coffee drinkers, the mood lift might just be relief from withdrawal symptoms, like fatigue and headaches.
I might not be an expert on nothing but I am a regular coffee drinker and if all I get is the mood lift that might just be relief from withdrawal symptoms, like fatigue and headaches, well SIGN ME UP.
A mood lift from the relief from fatigue and headache is no small thing.
I can heartily endorse that my daily coffee might just might bring me back to normal, and that moving out of a slump still feels satisfying.
And let me say, there are those days where the path back to normal is long and treacherous.
If I can get there through a cup of coffee, well slip me a slug from that wonderful jug
Waiter, waiter percolator, that bridge is waiting for me.
hello, sun in my face watch, now, how I start day in happiness, kindness
Hello, sun in my face. Hello, you who make the morning and spread it over the fields and into the faces of the tulips and the nodding morning glories, and into the windows of, even, the miserable and the crotchety—
best preacher that ever was, dear star, that just happens to be where you are in the universe to keep us from ever-darkness, to ease us with warm touching, to hold us in the great hands of light— good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.
WHY I WAKE EARLY in Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver by Mary Oliver (Penguin Press: New York, 2017).
This was the moments before the sun came up out of the Atlantic Ocean today, December 18, 2025. One of the shortest days of the year.
I go from fighting with the morning traffics where everyone who has to be to work on 7 am, tries to makes over the bridge and through the woods of Hilton Head Island even though there are only two roads.
The fun part is that for about a half mile before it splits, the road is 5 lanes wide and closes down to two lanes either side of the split.
There are all of us who work on the island and then there are those poor visitors who think they had driven hours to leave the woes of traffic behind.
I do feel sorry for them as I yell at them to get out of my way.
Then off to the left on the little used Cross Island Parkway and all at once I am on the Cross Island Bridge with the only view available on the island because any island in the low country … is FLAT and covered with trees.
And off to my left is the Atlantic Ocean and 1,000s of miles of nothing and the sky and the rising sun.
Best preacher that ever was,
Dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light—
good morning, good morning, good morning.
Watch, now, how I start the day, in happiness, in kindness.
Quite a transformation for the scant miles and few minutes of just a little bit ago.
three cups of coffee warm brown and caffeine filled starting the morning
He poured himself a cup of coffee, fumbling in the darkness, and sipped at it. Scalding hot, too hot to drink despite its long journey up from the wardroom. But the taste and the smell of it were sufficient to start his digestive processes working again. He longed for that coffee; he was accustomed to drinking eight big cups every day of his life and had always guiltily put aside the self-accusation that he was a coffee-hound dependent on a drug.
It was coffee; the inevitable set-up with the cream and sugar that he never used, but he viewed it as Galahad would have viewed the Holy Grail. Krause tugged off his gloves and snatched at it. His hands were numb and trembled a little as he poured: He swigged off the cup and refilled and drank again. The warmth as the coffee went down called his attention to the fact that he was cold; not acutely, perishingly, cold but chilled through and through as if nothing would ever quite warm him again.
Then a third cup of coffee, not swigged down madly like the first two, but drink more at leisure, savouring it like a true coffee-hound, with the added pleasure of knowing that there was a fourth cup yet to be drunk.
From The Good Shepard by CS Forester (Little, Brown: Boston, 1955).
A couple of days every week I work in the office which, for me, means getting up at 6 a.m. to try and get on the road to work around 6:45 a.m. and beat the traffic.
Goofy to say as I moved from Metro Atlanta with 10 million people to a seaside community with a scattered 100,000 people but we still have traffic problem and the problem is that almost everyone lives in one part of the county but works out on the coast island and we all go to work at the same time and there is only one bridge to the island.
Most days I get up at 7 a.m. and me and coffee and my morning reading of newspapers on my tablet have a comparatively leisurely start.
But when I am in the office, I get my clothes out the night before, I plan my lunch and I get the coffee ready.
Café Bustelo and the timer set for 5:45 a.m.
I wake up before the alarm and here the gurgling of the coffee maker and into the shower where I expect to have gallons of HOT FRESH WATER delivered to me at the touch of a hand – if that doesn’t set the USA off from 95% of the world … well, boy howdy!
Then out to the kitchen and my mug and the first sip.
The warmth as the coffee went down
Then a third cup of coffee, not swigged down madly like the first two, but drink more at leisure, savouring it like a true coffee-hound, with the added pleasure of knowing that there was a fourth cup yet to be drunk.
I pour that fourth cup too.
As I get squared away, keys, sun glasses, back pack … I look at that fourth cup sitting on the counter.
I put aside the self-accusation that he was a coffee-hound dependent on a drug and know that I might get caught in traffic without access to a bathroom and I leave it there.
