This week's Independent News & Media Irish regional newspapers' column.
Michael Commane
The struggle of getting out of bed early in the morning is really one of the great challenges of life.
It amazes me that there is so little clever pieces of writing about moving from the bed to the floor. Then again, maybe there are and I just haven’t seen them.
It is an exercise that intrigues me and I’m often inclined to think it is a paradigm for the story of our lives.
Mid March is now a long time ago. And for all of us it is a moment of time etched in our heads and hearts. It was the moment that Covid-19 struck such a heavy hammer blow on the nation. Indeed, it’s a blow that has slammed the entire planet.
Up to then it was my custom to rise at 06.10. The arrival of Covid meant that there was no 07.30 Mass to celebrate so I pushed the dials of the alarm clock on two hours to 8am. And what a difference it makes.
We have put the clocks back, which in theory should mean that we have an hour longer in bed in the morning. But whatever we have done, getting out of bed in the dark in the morning can be hell on earth. At least that’s my humble personal experience.
Even going to bed the previous night there is fear and trembling knowing that you have to be up early the next morning. That’s why Friday is so special, no early rising on Saturday.
And it all happens within a 20-minute time frame. I set the clock for 05.50. And those next 20 minutes are such a mix of emotions. ‘If only I could stay in bed just this one morning. I’d give anything to snooze for another two hours. Leave me here till 8am and that will make it all so much easier.’
But I know in my heart-of-hearts that can’t and won’t happen. I look at the clock. It’s three minutes past six. I have another seven minutes. Oh the pleasure of those seven minutes. You think the time is up and discover you have another three minutes.
Every second in bed is magic. But eventually the clock strikes ten past six. I’m out of the bed, crookedly standing on the floor. I’m up. I look at the bed and almost plead with the gods to let me back in. No, that doesn’t happen. I’m up. Probably within two minutes the agony is over.
I’m in the bathroom. Another few minutes, I’m dressed and downstairs, preparing breakfast. By the time I’m eating my porridge the entire ordeal is forgotten. At least for another 23 hours 40 minutes.
It’s all taken for granted and I get on with the day as I do every day.
In a way it really is the story of our lives. There is the temptation in all of us, at least so it is with me, that we would love to be doing something else, something different.
I’m saying to myself, if only I could relax more in the the bowl and appreciate it to the full.
And isn’t it funny, that the mornings we can stay on in bed, it seldom if ever turns out as good as the dreams we have about it on the mornings we have to get up in the early hours.
Anyway, it’s time to move on and put the whole saga to bed. At least until tomorrow. It gives me plenty of time to think.
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