One of the pleasures of being a certain age is that alarm clocks do not rule my life anymore. I seldom wake up to an alarm, and then only for a special event or to get up in time for a flight somewhere. Otherwise, I sleep until I wake up.
In my childhood, my alarm was my mother rousting me out of my nice warm bed and deep sleep to face getting dressed, getting my hair braided after a struggle with the snarls induced by a night’s slumber, and facing an early breakfast of cereal and toast. By high school the matter of getting up in time for school had been transferred to me, and I was woken up out of sleep by the piercing sound of my alarm clock. But getting me out of bed was less a matter of self-control than the fact that I knew a parent, somewhere, was keeping an eye on a watch and it was better to get up myself that be yelled at in an irritated voice.
But when I went off to college, the loss of this parental backstop combined with the introduction of the snooze alarm did not help in getting me to class on time, especially those eight o’clock lectures. While I mostly made it on time, I can remember occasions when I hit that snooze alarm far more than once.
The next alarm clock came with motherhood and an insistent, hungry baby demanding to be attended to and fed at a much too early hour in the morning. This was followed by school age children for whom I was now the alarm clock, and then jobs at which I certainly had to appear on time.
But now there is no job, no crying baby, and not even a clock with a snooze alarm. I can wake up when I wake up and it is still a luxury I treasure. I can lie in bed for a few minutes, snug under my covers and review my day and think about whatever comes to mind. I may have a busy day ahead of me, but that early morning gentleness is one of the best gifts of age.