My kind sister sent me a link to a fun essay at the Millions, At Night, All Books Are Bright. The author borrows Anne Fadiman’s terms for morning person – lark – and night person – owl. As a lark, the author wonders what it would be like to be an owl and wanders his way through the things writers and readers of the owl persuasion have said about being up in the late hours in a pool of lamplight, turning pages or typing words.
I am a lark. My sister is an owl. We have always been thus even as kids. It seems as we get older I have become even larkier and she more owly. I don’t know why, maybe it’s because as adults we are freer to follow our natural inclinations.
In college I would stay up late on weekends as best I could but I would usually crash around midnight. Sure, I’ve pulled a few all-nighters during finals a time or two but the only thing that kept me going was caffeine and fear of failure.
During the years when Bookman worked at Barnes and Noble he would often close on Friday nights which meant he wouldn’t be home until close to midnight. I’d relish these evenings, crawling into bed around 7 after consuming a cup of coffee, and then reading until the words on the page ceased to make sense sometime around 11 or 11:30. These days even with a cup of coffee I am lucky to make it past 9:30.
Thankfully Bookman is a lark too. I don’t know how I’d be able to manage living with an owl, someone would always be grumpy early or late. But we are both up at 5:30 in the morning on weekends during the summer and happy as larks, so to speak. I hate the heat that summer brings but I love the long days and on weekends when my time is my own the day stretches out beautifully with lots of reading time, morning and afternoon. I used to miss being able to stay up late on Friday nights reading, but give me my reading chaise, a cup of coffee and an afternoon snack, and oh, I don’t miss that nighttime reading at all.
I must admit there is something alluring to reading late at night and the Millions essay captures it marvelously. But I think the owls have had too much say about why late nights are better. Under the influence of owlish gushing, I have found myself wondering what I might be missing. But thinking about the late nights I have had I realize I have missed nothing. I much prefer the early mornings, the dawn just starting to show herself, the dew and quiet lying heavy all around. The quality of light in the early morning is so crisp and sparkling and the air clean and fresh. I love it when I can sit quietly and feel and hear the world begin to stir. I’ve never been one for reading first thing in the morning or doing much of anything unless it’s drinking coffee or eating breakfast. I much prefer to just be for a little while, to allow myself to feel the world spin. Then around 6:30 or 7 I am ready to start doing stuff, reading, writing, browsing online, sometimes chores around the house. And when I stop and think, wow it must be so late and discover that it is only 10:30 I get a little thrill, so much of the day still to go, so much time to enjoy.
When 9:00 at night arrives I crawl happily into bed, pick up a book and read for 20 minutes or so before turning off the light for sleep. It’s been a long day. It’s been a satisfying day. Let the owls have the night. They don’t know what they are missing.
You larks just don’t understand. For you, late at night means drooping eyelids and struggling to stay awake. Thats why you can appreciate the owl life. For an owl, we become more fully alert and alive the later it gets. And our time is trully our own…no stress about chores and running errands, or other things we “should be” doing. Its wonderful! I enjoy seeing the dawn as well…the quiet stillness as the night ends. And then I go to bed!
Yeah, but it works the other way too, you might stay up until dawn but you are sleepy and not alert, I’m fully alert and alive as you are in the middle of the night. And believe me, when you are up at 5:30 on a Saturday morning you aren’t running errands
I am reminded of Kathryn Schulz’s essay, http://nymag.com/print/?/arts/books/reviews/till-roenneberg-internal-time-2012-5/, on Time in which she writes about the internal clocks everyone has that regulate their daily habits. Yours is set to the Lark cycle. Trying to change that is almost impossible. So that staying up late with the same alertness you have earlier in the day, is like experiencing jet lag.
Richard, yes, I think you linked that article on your blog, yes? Or I saw it and read it via someone else. No matter. It is a good article. and you are right, late nights for me definitely feel like jet lag!
Is there a term for someone who, on a good day, has a few hours of lucidity around lunchtime? That would be me.
Litlove, oh you made me laugh!
I’m definitely a lark and always have been and like you, I’m getting ‘larker’ in as much as as I grow older my ability to function in the evenings is drawing in like the nights do in winter. I wish that meant that I could say that I was gaining more time in the mornings but it doesn’t seem to work that way. Much gnashing of teeth!
Alex, I like your description of evenings drawing in like winter nights! I used to be able to go past my preferred sleep time if I were busy but these days 9 pm rolls around and it is like I run into a wall.
I used to be an owl, but I’ve become a sort of lark. Actually, more like litlove, a few good hours late morning!
Joan, LOL, maybe we need a third option, something between a lark and an owl?
Lovely essay! I think I used to be more of an owl, but since having children, I definitely appreciate the mornings more now — the promise of the day ahead, the quiet time while my daughter watches cartoons, and I rest with a cup of coffee! Night time, I read for a few minutes and then pass out!
Louisa, I can imagine children change one’s schedule in all kinds of ways. I wonder when they are grown up if you will return to more owly ways? Please report back on that in 10-20 years
Naturlally I am an owl but due to a regular job and my daughter I’ve had to become much more lark-like. Sam is taking Evangeline out of town for several days to visit his parents (I don’t have the same amount of vacation he does for things like this) and I keep thinking how the only thing I’m really excited about is staying up past 11 o’clock finally. If I had my perfect schedule I would stay up working until 11:30, crawl into bed, read until I passed out and wake up at 7:30 or 8 every day!
Very fun article for a Friday morning – WAY more fun that that “can women have it all” article in the Atlantic everyone is blogging about.
Courtney, Thanks! That’s funny that you are looking forward to staying up late. It’s too bad we can’t work a schedule that suits our natural inclinations. I think we’d all be so much happier and productive if we could. I hope you enjoy your late nights while Sam and Evangeline are away!
I used to be an owl, but while I’m not exactly lark-like now, I can’t sleep in past 7:30, and I can’t stay up much past 10:30 anymore. Maybe I’m mid-transition on my way to larkdom. I do love staying up late reading, though — sometimes, if I have nothing to do the next day and am really into a book, I can stay up as late as 1 or 2 in the morning. Not often, though. It’s kind of exhilarating to do that sometimes!
Daphne, you just might be turning into a lark! You still have owlish tendencies though with the staying up late reading. I can’t remember the last time I stayed up til midnight!
Maybe I’m a midday person as well. I used to be able to stay up half the night reading (and able to understand what I was reading), but now that I have to get up early I can’t read late and don’t know why I bother trying (though I do still try). I still stay up far too late and need to stop–but by the time I get home from work and do chores and then finally have my “own time” there is so little of it and so much to do–I find I don’t get into bed much before 11:00–bad habit! On weekends I love to sleep in, but I can see the appeal of getting up early and feeling like you have lots of time to accomplish things–I compare what I do during the work week and weekends and am amazed how I can sleep through what would otherwise very productive hours. Oh well. I just wish time would slow down a litte… (on both ends of the day).
Danielle, it sounds like you are actually an owl but because of work have been forced to change your preferred schedule. If only we didn’t have to work on someone else’s clock! And I agree, I wish time would slow down just a little too!
I think if I didn’t have a job and were left totally to my own devices, I’d be an owl. I always was growing up. I’d often start on some big project, like cleaning out the closet, at 10 pm, and I wouldn’t go to bed until I was done. A job change a few years ago forced me to keep larkish hours so I could beat the traffic, and I’ve gotten to liking it, so I’ve kept it up even after moving close to the office. The nice thing for me is that because I’m so slow to wake up and become lucid, being the office lark means that I’m the first person there and don’t have to deal with people while I’m still groggy and slow. I have to go to bed and get up at the same time every day or I end up feeling awful, so I don’t even sleep in on weekends.
Mostly, I’m with Danielle and would just like a little more time on both ends of the day. An hour or two more would make a huge difference!
Teresa, You would hate to have me at your office. I am the person who opens the library where I work and I am chipper as can be first thing in the morning. I work with two dedicated owls and the times they have to come in early are rather painful for all concerned. They complain about me being too cheerful and I complain about how grumpy they are
That essay is awesome, and so are your comments. Very thought provoking.
I am DEFINITELY owly. Even more owly than real owls.
I love the night — I come alive! I think I inherited this from my father, who was definitely an owl. My mother was a lark type.
I think it would be real interesting to read a follow-up study on owls and larks and see how these personalities react to shade and sunlight, preference wise.
My owl nature seeks shade, whenever possible. I detest direct sunlight when the option of shade is available. Unless I am directly attempting to get a tan on my owly legs!
Cipriano, I am not surprised that you are an owl, all that coffee and hamburger, one can’t sleep right away unless you want to have nightmares
I love sunny days but I need the shade outdoors otherwise I look like a boiled lobster. Light does affect me though, the sunnier it is, the more energy I have and a string of gloomy gray days leaves me tired and dull. So there might be something to your theory.
Oh, I am such an owl (writing this at midnight, on the dot) who is so, so very jealous of larks. I have always come alive at night, and yet, I wish so much that I could come alive in the morning, and, on those very rare occasions when I do manage to catch a sunrise, I wish it even more. Our world is built to cater to larks. No one understands someone who doesn’t function well at a 9:00 a.m. meeting (who, really, truth be told, doesn’t even like to talk to anyone much before noon). At this point in my life, I am so happy that I can keep my own hours, which generally means going to bed between 12:30 and 1:00 a.m. and sleeping till about 8:30 a.m. (although I have to fight being considered crazy in this farming community, full of larks, up singing at 5:00 a.m.). Also, I am very lucky to have married another owl. Like others, I don’t know what I’d do if I were married to a lark (except maybe get to appreciate more sunrises).
Emily, an owl jealous of larks? That is a rarity!
You are lucky you can keep your own hours and even luckier that Bob is an owl too. The world does favor larks though not completely. Sometimes on a Saturday morning when I am in the mood to go out and do something I will look at the clock and it will be only 7 and there is nothing open but coffee shops. by the time 9 or 10 rolls around I am no longer in the mood to go out. I don’t know if that offers any consolation to you but being up before the sun doesn’t always have a plus side.
Another owl responding at midnight. I’ve always been an owl. I treasure the dark of night when I’m alone typing on my laptop, with just the soft humming sound of the furnace as ambiance. I’m most in touch with myself then due to the absence of noises, voices, and other distractions, and therefore, most alive.
Arti, another owl! It seems there are more owls than larks or maybe it just seems that way. Personally, I love the cacophony of birdsong at dawn. It makes me happy
Being an owl doesn’t mean we necessarily sleep in. I usually wake up at around 6:30 am. Alas, sleep deprivation is what I’ve learned to live with.
Oh Arti, sleep deprivation is no good! I suspect that is more of a problem for owls than larks. My owly sister stays up to the wee hours and then complains about being tired when she has to get up for work. It seems that it is almost impossible for her to go to sleep earlier, or at least that is what she claims!
What an interesting idea, lark or owl! My personal inclination is to be an owl, but because I work full time and have young kids, I am forced to be a kind of lay in bed as late as I can lark. I do not ever willingly wake up before 7 am! lol I was so surprised to discover that two of my friends woke up at 5:30 even on the weekends! *shiver* Part of the joy of the weekend/holiday is knowing i don’t have to get up early. And yet, I do enjoy the sun and the quiet of the day early in the morning, too, the stillness before the day begins. It’s just getting up and feeling awake that is the problem! lol
I wonder what bird would be between those two?
Susan, LOL, I woke up a little after 5 on Saturday
I can’t remember the last time I slept past 7. I am weak in ornithology and can’t think of an in-between bird. There must be one!
How interesting. I am a lark. I awake most days at 5AM and read as soon as the first cup of coffee is ready. We have dear friends who are owls–when they come over to dinner they stay until 1 AM. As much as I enjoy their company–it is agonizing to me.
Vanessa, at last, another lark! All these owl comments I was beginning to feel greatly outnumbered! I have some owly friends but they know I can’t manage late nights and blessedly leave by 10 or 11 and forgive me for leaving them by 9 or 10.