4:00 AM
Early morning hath gold in its mouth.
~ Benjamin Franklin
How often do you see 4:00 AM?
Back in my radio days, when I hosted the morning show, I saw it daily. I seldom greeted it with a smile. Most mornings, I smashed the snooze bar, opting for 4:10. I can do 4:10.
When I worked the night shift at the nursing home, 4:00 AM meant last rounds: changing linens; emptying urinals; taking blood pressures; looking for an empty bed to curl up in until the morning crew arrives.
At 4:00 AM on a snowy December morning in 2000, a cup of coffee in one hand, my wife’s hand in the other, I began repeating the mantra, my husbandly duty, one last time . . . “Push!”
Perhaps it depends upon from which direction of the day you approach 4:00 AM. Is it better to stay up until 4:00 or to get up at 4:00?
With time running out, and term papers frantic to be committed to hard drive, I plan to get up at 4:00 AM tomorrow, just to see if the next paragraph will come to me then. For it seems to be lost at present, eclipsed by the light of day.
Few of us want to see such an ungodly minute. But there it is, nestled between 3:59 and 4:01.
4:00 AM is what you make it, I guess. And I’m not the only one contemplating its significance . . .
