On Vivid Memories of Morning

10/28/2007 7:24 AM - 7:49 AM

There is something in the morning, a smoothness in the passing of time, that isn’t found at other parts of the day. It is one thing to waste the daylight, another thing entirely to waste it as it first appears. I find it odd that now I, who was for years a dedicated insomniac, find the morning hours my own. It isn’t unusual, I suppose.

I remember that as a child of four or five, I was usually the first to awake. In my mind, I awoke hours before the rest of the house and waited impatiently for someone else to rise so that I wouldn’t be alone anymore. Reasoning the memories, I conclude that it probably wasn’t more than a half hour, forty-five minutes at the most. The memories that we create when we’re that young are tricked by the fact that, since we had so few, the ones we did have are more vivid than the ones we make now.

I'm guessing that it’s because, when comparing the density of those memories so bright and clear, so packed with information, with the standard of memories more recently made, the mind estimates time and concludes that it must have taken longer because so much data is contained within those tiny moments. It’s like having two digital videos, and without being able to actually watch them, trying to compare them based only on their file sizes. We conclude that since they are both about the same size, they both must run for about the same amount of time. Opening them, we discover that one is merely standard while the other is hi-def. The standard runs the standard amount of time while the hi-def runs much shorter but oh so much more vivid and clear. The memories of childhood seem so much more important that the ones from three weeks ago, but the data they contain is not much more significant for decision making. Just so much more alive and real. And there. I have written the sun up. You’re very welcome. There are clouds along the edges but the sky overhead is clear. This is good. It is a Sunday after all. God can peak down and see us and maybe grant us moments of being as vivid and clear as our memories of mornings long ago when someone awoke and seeing us, proved that we were real.