r u kin?

~ Live & Learn

If I get up now, I can make coffee. I can walk down the stairs, go to the kitchen, and make myself coffee. Maybe sit down and write. I can hear my husband breathing. Our daughter breathing…The dog breathing. If I listen, I can hear cars out on the road, it’s still nighttime, or early morning, it depends on who you are, how you were raised, what experiences you bring to the different times of day, it’s three forty-five now, do you call that morning or night, I call it morning, but too early to get up, I check the time on my cell phone and then I check my messages, I sit up and lie down, a few cars drive past right outside my window, there and there and there, and farther off a gentler stream, cars driving past at night sound different from cars driving past in the daytime. Today is the first of _ _ _ _ _ ….

~ Linn Ullmann, ”Unquiet: A Novel” (W. W. Norton & Company, January 15, 2019)

Photo: Eric Rose

21 thoughts on “r u kin?”

  3. For me, there is something almost mystical about the dead of night, that time right around 3, 3:30 a.m., when my world is (almost) wrapped in a blanket of silence. The scratching of an unseen animal in the brush, the random cry of a bird, the miscellaneous car passing, all evoke a sense of curiosity, a desire to be still and observe.

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  4. When I wake in the night it is often right at 3 ~ I pay attention to what I hear as it feels like that’s a time of visiting .. perhaps my angel relatives stopped in to pull up my blanket or give me a kiss on the cheek. There’s night sounds and cars in the road (louder in winter with snow on the ground) and sometimes a bird or something rustling outside. Typically the next step is a “tuck & roll,” with great flourish, and deep sleeps till the 6am hour.

    Dreamy, evocative post, David, Thank you!

    MJ

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  5. 3:45 is definitely dead of night for me, though for a while it was bedtime! Anything before 6 is dead of night though, when I am awakened by whatever, listening to the silence being broken by a random car passing by, rain on the window, Zeke’s snoring (who needs a man? Well, no, that would be nice….) there is a certain sense of peace. Then, lke MJ tuck and roll is in order 😉

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  6. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    My morning routine … ‘early morning, it depends on who you are, how you were raised, what experiences you bring to the different times of day, it’s three forty-five now, do you call that morning or night, I call it morning, but too early to get up, I check the time on my cell phone and then I check my messages … ‘

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  7. I agree on MJ’s perspective on “tuck and roll” as well. And it’s definitely still night and too early to entertain getting up, although when I was working I would often get up and do many of the things that the author makes note of. Before long though, I would be at my desk in my home office and answering and sending e-mails. Thankfully, I have more of a life now that includes more sleep … thank you tuck and roll!

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