We Own the Morning
"I think that I cannot preserve my health and spirits, unless I spend four hours a day at least—and it is commonly more than that—sauntering through the woods and over the hills and fields." - Thoreau
Outside is a cold, inky blackness illuminated with the artificial lights of street lamps. A slight drizzle wisps down and creates interesting patterns in the light of my head torch. It’s 5am, and I’m running.
About half a mile up the road I see a rare sight. There is a fox trotting up the middle of the empty road and I find myself thinking how strange it is to see such a wild animal outside of the countryside or woods. I imagine him scavenging at bins, as I have seen foxes do, though I don’t remember where or when, but then I remember that everyone has big plastic bins now, unlike years ago when we used to put out black bin liners that would often be pecked open by scavenging crows.
As I trundle on up the road, I wonder how such animals survive in deforested urban areas when they can’t even scavenge at bins, and yet, somehow, they do. I rarely see foxes roaming the streets in Galway, but when I do it feels kind of magical in some way. And on this cold winter’s morning I find myself comparing domesticated people to foxes.
We can build all the roads we want; walk around with airs and graces; wear the latest fashions, which I sometimes think look like funny little monkey suits, and drive cars that we think express “who we are” and afford some kind of status, or lack of, based on how much money they cost to buy, but which end up rusting in scrap yards anyway; we can play games of pretend and observe “manners” at the table, and in company generally, so that we can tolerate being around each other; but we can’t change our inner selves. We can’t change the fact that our bodies need exercise even though the invention of motorised vehicles makes it seem less necessary than it would be in their absence.
I sometimes wonder how people survive urban life, never-mind foxes. To walk two miles out of town at rush hour takes me around 30 minutes, whereas if I drive it can take as long as an hour and a half, which is insane. And if you walk, you’re at risk of being slammed into by someone on an electric scooter, which aren’t far removed from motorbikes on the pavement. The users of same often have big headphones on and seem completely oblivious to the world around them. I’ve nearly been hit several times by them in the past year, and know two people who have been quite badly injured by being hit by them in that time period.
I think a lot of wildlife gets a bit skittish when human life wakes up, and I can relate. I personally feel much more at peace with the world in the early mornings when there’s no cars around polluting the air, full of irritated drivers violently smashing their horns at the frustration of another driver’s slowness to move when a light changes or the traffic has moved on a few metres and the driver in front hasn’t filled the space that’s opened up.
This year, I’ve been getting up much earlier, more often, than I ever have before in my life, and this year, I started to notice an abundance of wildlife on early morning walks and runs that I never noticed before. One morning, around 5am, I saw a red squirrel running along by the beach which is weird since there aren’t really any woods near there. Another morning, I saw a funny shaped rock in the distance and then realised it was a big fat seal perched on top of another rock. And on loads of mornings, I saw dolphins, which was something I’ve scarcely seen in my life, never-mind with so much regularity along paths I’d walked countless times over the years.
Like the fox, I think those of us who get up to go running and walking around dark winter streets in the hours before sunrise are possessed by an inexplicable restlessness that dates back to times long before tarmacked roads, indoor plumbing, cars, and artificial street lights. We feel uneasy unless we spend hours self-propelled by our own feet and legs. Many of us might be considered a little neurotic and have tried to fill an inner feeling of emptiness with all sorts of things and found them all lacking, with the only thing that brings solace being to keep moving forward, one foot in front of the other, free from the entanglements and responsibilities of modern life. Like the fox, we live and run these concreted walkways and tarmacked streets even though something inside of many of us feels calmer in forests, among trees, or roaming around rugged hills in the countryside.
The day belongs to heavy traffic, artificially lit offices, blinking cursors on glaring screens, bad posture, and observing certain social customs. It belongs to meaningless, walking-on-egg-shells small talk, and suppressing parts of ourselves to fit in with safe and approved, but empty, conversations about the weather and what kinds of takeaway food we like; the planned holidays we hope to go on that are supposed to feel like events of great adventure but really often just feel like empty efforts at filling a void that’s always there no matter where we go because we can never get away from ourselves. The day world may belong to traffic jams and people rushing around trying to get places, crawling along at a snail’s pace which can drive even the most sane person crazy, but we, who like to run for hours by ourselves, and think our own thoughts, we, we own the morning, and the sound “we” is almost the same sound as the French word “oui”, which means “yes” and this is a good answer to a question that nobody asked.
:)