Travel Pathology

Up in the morning’s no for me,
Up in the morning early;
When a’ the hills are cover’d wi’ snaw,
I’m sure its winter fairly.

Sticking with the Robert Burns theme this week.

It’s currently 11 in the morning, and I’ve just barely crawled out of bed to sit at the kitchen table and drink some coffee. Even though I have the excuse of having attended a Ceilidh until midnight last night, waking up this late has actually become my new normal.

In the past, I would’ve self identified as a morning person. I treasure the first hours of daylight, the “newness” scent in the air, the world neatly tucking away the events of the night, clearing the table for something new. For me, everything is better in the morning; my focus, my workouts, my mood, my productivity.

Folks often share how Europe is more of a night culture, with most shops not even opening until 9 or 10 in the morning and social gatherings commonly starting after 8 pm. Students gasp when they discover one of their courses is scheduled for 9 am, as if it were 7 am. Vigilantes are more active in this part of the world during the hours of 7 and 8 in the morning.

Having resisted the European way of life for as long as I could last year, I maintained my morning routine throughout the fall. However, by December, it had completely unraveled. Typically, I would wake up around 7 am, tidy up while my coffee brewed, gather my journal, laptop, and books, and settle into a cozy spot to enjoy my coffee. Then, I would capitalize on my energy and push through a workout. By noon, my day was complete, and whatever happened in the afternoon was uncharted territory. I allocated time for socializing, projects, piano practice, or studying Italian. This way of life was easy during the fall season.

As the winter months set in, the sun became a late riser, not gracing us with its presence until 9:00 am. I find that I rely on the sun – its optimism, its can-do attitude – to coax me out of bed, making the transition from horizontal to vertical just a little bit easier. However, even the sun doesn’t seem to enjoy winter in Scotland, leaving me to fight the cold dark mornings on my own.

It starts the same way every night. As I turn off my bedside lamp, I make a pledge of discipline that I will arise at an appropriate hour the following morning and change the whole world with my raw, untamed, fully-rested energy. Arriving at a coffee shop when it opens, I will finish all of my school projects. Then run off to the gym where I will complete two hours of rigorous exercise, have time to shower and glamour myself up before returning to the public to finish some errands and head home to clean the entire flat by 3pm in the afternoon.

But the alarm music (this week has been “Scotland the Brave”) fills my bedroom as my windows, streaked with condensation, frame the sky that slowly turns a palette of blue. I hear the birds in their morning commute as they perch on the chimney tops. I make a minor adjustment under the blankets, allowing just enough of that rigid, icy air to slip inside my warmed cocoon, and the cycle begins. I instantly work to regain the warmth generated overnight by remaining still and soaking up the warm areas of my bed. I heave the blankets over my shoulders to create a seal, defending against the most unwelcome morning air. The sun is no help; he is so far away this time of year that whatever feeble light he sends gets screened harshly, like carry-on luggage at London Heathrow Airport.

I cannot brave the cold. Time slips away. I dabble in a few more dreams that play with my sense of reality each time I momentarily wake. And then, it’s 10am. The day (my day) is almost over. Two full hours of precious daylight have been lost.

Apparently, the Scottish have already developed a term for this sort of behavior. “Hurkle-durkle”- to lay in the warmth of your bed when one should be up and about. So, I like to think of the newly developed habit as simply embracing the Scottish way of life. Whether it be voluntarily or involuntarily. It’s part of the charm of moving to a new place and have your routines and lifestyle mold to the backdrop. As a traveler, I’d say this is a sign I am doing it right.

When I finally rise out of bed, the house is pleasantly warmed by the boiler, which has been programmed to run for a couple of hours in the morning. The city itself remains sleepy, and the streets below are fairly quiet. I saunter to the yellow kitchen and enter a sacred ritual of preparing my morning coffee. We acquired a cute coffee grinder from a charity shop, which I feel makes the coffee even more delicious, because it’s more of a reward after ten minutes of physical labor hand-grinding the beans.

Since my fabulous decision to teach Troy how to bake his own bread, I have been enjoying delicious toast with my coffee in the morning, while the boy avidly works to perfect this new craft and makes an abundance of fresh loaves. Sometimes, I challenge him to a game of chess as we enjoy our breakfast, hoping to recreate my legendary success from that fateful day in May 2022 with a perfectly placed bishop and his king with nowhere to go—a triumph I have not had since.

I still cherish my mornings, as different as they are these days. I pray as the light returns to this part of the world, and the warmth comes with it, I will have my mornings back the way they were-long and productive. But for now, I find myself eating dinner around 8 pm, finishing up my blog posts around 10 pm, and reading my fairy books until midnight.