Keep the dream alive
In another life, i lived in San Francisco, i worked for an oil company in the financial district, i lived one block from the corner of Haight and Ashbury and i had a morning ritual.
My alarm clock would go off at 7 AM, i would throw on some clothes, grab a quick breakfast, hop on the excellent mass transit (the number 6 Parnassus bus if you must know) and arrive at my 24th floor office at 7 AM. This particular magic was done by setting my home alarm clock half an hour fast and having a highly abbreviated morning routine.
Truth told, i loved working for the oil company (it was Sohio, which was basically a subsidiary of British Petroleum). i had a brilliant boss, who treated me well, let me do fun things, gave me three promotions and four raises in 2 years. i got to travel a bunch, play with super computers, run exotic projects and hire some curious people. And i did not have the political consciousness i have today, which would make such work completely unthinkable.
Here on the commune, i dont have an alarm clock (except on Thursdays, i use my phone to get me up early for tofu). It represents one of the subtle, but quite important changes in quality of life that exist here. If you sleep until you naturally wake up, or until Willow flops has hand in your face, or Sara spoons me early in the day, it is a completely different experience than being roused by a time piece telling you your day has started.
Central to this difference is the ability to roll over and go back to sleep if you think you need more rest. You feel unhurried about your day. That there is no boss (no matter how good they might be) waiting for you to show up and tell you what you are are supposed to do today or ask you how you are doing on that report or project.
The joke is that the commune is not paradise, but on a good day you can see it from here. And almost every morning, when my groggy eyes dont see an alarm clock ringing, it looks pretty good.
i hate coffee, but i love this mug
4 responses to “Keep the dream alive”
Trackbacks / Pingbacks
- - August 11, 2012
your passport to complaining 
When I quit my legit job to become a dog walker everything about my sleeping life became better. This was largely because I was afforded the time to figure out my sleeping rhythms/cycle. I actually wake up far earlier now even though I don’t have to start working until 11am most days. Whereas at my legit job I had to be at work by 9am and was consistently late. I use an alarm as a back-up but I’ve basically figured out at what point in my sleep cycle it is good to wake up – and this can be adjusted no matter the hour of the morning, which is awesome! (By making sure I don’t force myself to wake up when I’m in deep sleep or rem sleep). Of course, for me, there is also the fact that my nightmares have decreased significantly. And unlike you, I try to go to bed at a consistent time 🙂
Unrelated, have you ever seen one of these?: http://www.thinkgeek.com/homeoffice/lights/8f1a/
My former my partner was terrible at waking up in the morning and someone left one of these in HacDC. We tried it once and it was positively the worst/most amusing way to wake up ever!
Depends on your work, though. For tofu and 7 am garden shifts, I still set an alarm. I guess the beauty of it is the choice of work, and in not doing the same thing every day. Some days I’d set the alarm for work that I was choosing to do (and thus, choosing to set the alarm), and other days I’d stay in bed till I wanted to get up.
These days, I get to stay in bed until my alarm clock (named Aurora, 4 yrs old) goes off!
if i waited for my 10 year old alarm clock named Willow to wake me, i would loose half the day – but he regularly goes to sleep after me when we are together, so it seems only fair