Timepieces is an Author & Co. collection of original writing built around exact minutes of the day. Across the series, these moments form a portrait of how life unfolds, one minute at a time.
There was a time in my early 20s when I exercised as late as 10 p.m. I’d moved to Philadelphia, gotten a job as an editor at an alt-weekly newspaper, and had the requisite energy to walk to work, report and write all day, have dinner or happy hour with friends, and then do an at-home workout DVD in the confines of my living room before showering and hitting the sack.
This is unimaginable to me now, at 37. It’s become abundantly clear to me over the years that if the workout isn’t happening in the morning, it’s almost certainly not happening at all. It’s not only a matter of energy reserves – though it is that, too – but also a matter of psychology. I want the thing that takes the most energy done first; I want to eat the frog, as they say. If the workout is relegated to the back half of the day on the to-do list, it hangs over my head in such a way that it becomes something I don’t want to do even though exercise has become one of my favorite things to do. So morning exercise it is, despite my natural and circadian inclination to stay up past midnight and lie in past 9:30.
It causes me a flicker of embarrassment to observe and admit what a battle this has been. I know people with children or dogs or early-shift jobs who are out the door at 5 a.m. – heroes, all – and here I am, fighting every biological impulse and lifestyle preference to just get to the gym in my neighborhood by 7:30 a.m. so I can be home to start my remote work by 9. Champagne problems, to be sure. But this comparison has no utility beyond pointless self-shaming: that’s them, I’m me, and I’m simply no good in the mornings. Alas.
What else I’ve learned is that my morning personhood requires what I think of as “ramp-up time.” I’ve heard the advice that the thing to do is set the alarm, launch myself into my gym clothes and go rocketing out the door before my brain and body have a chance to protest. The longer you linger, they say, the more likely it is you won’t make it out the door at all. As someone who has the luxury of a flexible, relatively fancy-free schedule, this risk looms large. What’s crucial to me, though, is keeping exercise as something I want to do, because it has in so many ways saved my life. It pulled me out of the depths of a binge eating disorder and the associated disconnection with my body, and strength training in particular gave me a new and profound lens through which to view my body and a thrilling new internal language I use to communicate with it. I cannot resent it. I will not make it a thing I dread, as I did for too many years.
The slamming, launching, rocketing entry to daily exercise makes the routine too frantic, too frenzied, too much like an emergency. For some people this is the only option, and I wish they had others because I despise the rush-required nature of modern life. So long as I have the schedule and autonomy I do, though, I will take my ramp-up time.
6:20 a.m. is when it begins. I have a “sunrise alarm” that gradually beams increasingly bright light at me starting around 30 minutes before that set time. I used to wake up from a series of thunderous phone alarms, bonging and crashing like circus music, that bolted me out of the depths of a REM cycle every morning. To do this to myself if I don’t need to, in a world that’s determined to otherwise dysregulate my nervous system at every turn? No, thank you. I will go gently into that good morning, instead.
From 6:20 a.m., I have about an hour. It is up to me how I make use of it, but I will be at the gym by 7:30 a.m. come hell or high water. How this hour passes is a matter of relativity, as ol’ Einstein has explained: “An hour sitting with a pretty girl on a park bench passes like a minute, but a minute sitting on a hot stove seems like an hour.” For me, it’s something more like this: “An hour scrolling on your phone passes like a minute, but an hour sipping cold brew while reading a book, petting your cat, or simply staring out the window passes like at least a true hour.” The ramp-up time is sacred; the world requires nothing of me and no one would expect a text back. It is how I ease into the hardest, and yet best, part of my day, so I’d better make it last. No scrolling.
On my best days, I rise easily, throw on my fluffy robe, float to the kitchen, and choke down some water before reaching for the caffeine. Then, I sit. I don’t really do anything, which is something I almost never do. Sometimes I look at the clock and see how 6:40 a.m. to 7 a.m. can somehow feel like a long time indeed, and at the end of it, all I have to do is slowly get dressed, glide out the door, and arrive at the place I so love to be.
There was a time when setting an alarm so early was foreboding. I’d climb into bed, anticipating how miserable, how tired, how resentful I’d be when the waking hour barged its way into my life. Now, I set the little fake sun in my room to nearly a quarter past six and anticipate how when I rise, it’ll somehow feel like I have all the time in the world.
Featured Writer: Mikala Jamison is the creator and writer of the Body Type newsletter on Substack, and is the author of the forthcoming book, The Forever Project.
Interested in contributing to Author & Co.’s Timepieces series? Email yasmin@authorandco.com for submission details.
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