5:30 am in Brooklyn

I've never been a good sleeper.  

Unless I am extra exhausted, I tend to be restless and wake up ultra early.  Up until just a few years ago, I would have really wild dreams in which my teeth fall out* while riding motorcycles and shooting guns. 

While I still get up early, the restlessness and crazy dreams have waned a bit, but as a general rule, being good at sleeping is not in my skill set.

When I lived in New York, when I would wake up early, often I would just get up.  

The sun would be barely rising, but when the choices were sit in my apartment with my thoughts and cleaning to be done or go out and see what the city was up to while I mulled, the choice was obvious.

The time in New York when the sun is rising is one of the few relatively quiet times in the city.  Sure there are some sounds, but the horns that were blaring at 4am, aren't now.  The giant motorcycles aren't pulsing down the street.  And no one is talking all that loud.  While there is always activity, it's really calm. 

Sometimes I would go running** on the West Side down to Battery Park. I would watch the boats on the water and scoot by the public art along the way (You have to know where to look, but it's there...a giant chess board, odd little statues and weird oblelisks staggered in the park.)

But my favorite was just to wander south, through Washington Square Park, down through Soho and into Chinatown.  I would pass by the club kids heading home and the allnight partyers making "the walk of shame."  

I know where the vendors keep their carts, locked up in an alley right off Houston Street.  When they gather to pick up their carts, and wheel them out, it's like an awesome parade that trails off into their own specific directions.  

Then on to my favorite---the fishmongers of Chinatown.  Seriously, perhaps it's creepy and strange, but I love to watch the process --- a whole fish, sliced and diced, lightening quick and put into its place on the cool ice.  (I feel the same way about meat stores as well.  It's just orderly, skilled and artful.) 

I would wander a while more and watch the city wake up.  Then I would head back home and get ready to move onto my own day.  

I think of it now, as I sit in my cousin's apartment in Brooklyn.  I've gotten up early, not only because I do, but because I am still on Norwegian time and in my head it's almost time for lunch.  The buildings are tall and shiny in the near distances and the sun is streaking the sky with reds and yellows and blues.

*Yes, I know this means a fear of growing up coupled with a desire for freedom, along with other general anxieties.  I'm over it now.  Thanks.

**Yes, yes, I did.