Very early.
3 a.m. early.
Sometimes, they start-stop by 3:15, driven by too much healthful water the night before. And the alarm goes off as usual three hours later and you almost wonder if those 15 minutes really happened.
But occasionally, the 3:15 ticks over to 3:40, and then 3:55, by which time I for one have run out of doze-back-off tricks. I avoid the glare of the phone and the laptop; instead, I reach for a bit of paper in an effort to get some things off my mind by writing them down.
Eventually, I wearied of writing grocery, laundry, chores, and to-do lists. The cats stretched and ambled over to give me head-butts and purrs, so I returned the favor by ambling to the kitchen give them some crunchies. As it was by now 5:30, I decided to give up and wake up properly, and filled the kettle. While it burbled and hissed, I walked over to the big garden windows and realized the blackness of 3 a.m. had thinned. The subtle return of color reminded me of my favourite passage in Swallows and Amazons.
The wind blew away the clouds and the stars shone out high over Swallow and her sleeping crew. The deep blue of the sky began to pale over the eastern hills. The islands clustered about Rio Bay became dark masses on a background no longer as dark as themselves. The colour of the water changed. It had been as black as the hills and the sky, and as these paled so did the lake. The dark islands were dull green and grey, and the rippled water was the colour of a pewter teapot.
Swallows and Amazons, Arthur Ransome (1930)
By then, the kettle had boiled, tea’s made, and it was time to put some clothes on and face the rest of the day.