For most of my life I was a morning person. In some circles, revealing that about myself could be almost a confession, or at the least apologetic, as if it were something to be ashamed of. We all know people who are hardly alive before they have coffee in the morning, and who are proud of it. But I was in the habit of jumping out of bed and getting started on whatever needed doing. When I was a teenager, with friends who would have started their day at noon if it had been possible, I would dress as soon after dawn as I could, even in the summer, and ride my bicycle on deserted streets or play catch with myself, tossing a tennis ball against a wall or the concrete steps in front of the house. Breakfast was an inconvenient intrusion in the day.
I started that paragraph just after six this morning. My first thought, when I woke up a few minutes ago, was about how I can no longer spring into action when my consciousness returns in the morning. It’s a private fact about myself. When I run into people during the day, I have no idea whether they are fighting a diurnal slump or if they are at their daily best. But I do know that mornings are no longer the welcoming time of day they used to be for me. I have finally learned, first-hand, that spirit-is-willing-flesh-is-weak stuff I’ve always heard about.
I’ve reached a point in life where waking up, whether it’s from a nap in the afternoon or from a long, deep sleep in the morning, means re-orienting myself, making an effort to become fully aware of what day is it and what room am I in. I have to plant myself firmly in time and space before I allow my foot to touch the ground.
It reminds me of a story – I think I read it in a book by Elie Wiesel – about a man walking toward a distant town who lies down to sleep when it gets too dark to see the road. The last thing he does before he goes to sleep is to point his shoes in the direction he was going. Before he wakes, somebody tries on the shoes by the side of the road but finds that they do not fit. So he puts them back down, but he points them in the opposite direction. Our man wakes up, puts his shoes on, and starts on his journey again. Before long he sees a town just like his. Everything in it is familiar. He knows the streets, the buildings, the people. Eventually he gets to a house that looks just like his. The woman of the house and the children are so glad to see him that he decides to stay and to forget about the trip he was going to take. He never resumes his trip, and he lives a whole new life in the other town. His wife wonders what ever happened to him.
When you live without commitments that push you into a daily routine, it is not hard to think of yourself like that wanderer. You have to push yourself to remember whether to turn right or left when you hit the road again.
I grew up in a world of religious rituals. Everything was set out and known. I knew that I had to wash my hands before touching my eyes after I woke up, and I was instructed on which shoe to lace up first. The basic book of Jewish law, which lays out directions for every step of the day, is named The Set Table. Following those rituals makes much of life predictable and understandable. A whole community engaged in those rituals gains a built-in sense of trust and cohesiveness.
The down side of moving away from the commitments of ritual, of course is that it can lead to isolation and suspicion.
For hundreds of years in European Jewry it was traditional to ask strangers to show that they wore the ritual fringes on their clothing. That would prove that they were part of the in-crowd. It would also show that strangers were not really strangers, that the fixed community shared something fundamental with them and that they could be trusted.
These rituals have virtually faded from my life. Knowing who I am and where I am going nowadays takes a special effort, and it starts with my first conscious thought in the morning. That conscious thought used to be an instant given; now it has to be jigged into place.
But I console myself with the fact that the spirit is still willing. I know many people who have already lost that piece of the puzzle.
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