For two years of my life I woke up, more often than not, at 5:25 a.m. It’s only bad when you’re not used to it. After a week of waking up before sunrise nothing could feel more normal. It’s amazing what we adapt to. Anything. My alarm was always set for 5:30, but I would wake up five minutes before, reach over, flip the switch of my alarm clock, and stare at the ceiling for five minutes before going through the motions: teeth, shower, pants, shirt, shoes, wallet, keys, ignition. At 5:30 a.m., even in San Diego, there are seasons. The chirping of birds, the crash of the waves, the hinges of surfers’ pick-up trucks: they would all ascend and descend as our spiraling planet grew closer and further from the sphere of gases that makes life even a remote possibility.
The drive, it starts out like this, a quiet coasting down Leucadia boulevard with a thin strip of silvery marine blue always on the horizon.
Leucadia, with all her Greek gods and goddesses, settled by spiritualist quacks at the end of the 19th century, overtaken by nouveau-riche surfer yippies at the end of the 20th century. Its eccentricity, a perfect melding of both.
I would arrive to work at 5:50 a.m., as would José, always right on the dot. He’d be blasting Maná. I always started the day with KSDS.
– ¿Qué onda pinche guero!!?
– ¿Qué dices puto? Tu mamá te manda saludos!
And so the day would start. The first thing you do is brew the coffee. ‘Cause the same five customers are always going to be there at 5:55 a.m. no matter how many times you tell them you open at six. We took turns: hosing down the patio, cleaning the bathrooms, prepping the kitchen, cleaning the espresso machine, putting out the pastries. There was no division of labor, no hierarchy, no script. It was all jazz, improvisation, two musicians who know what chord is coming next.
Jose
I’m quiet in the mornings, nearly mute, until I have my first cup of coffee. Then José and I would begin our wit fest, laughing and cracking jokes at the expense of un-caffeinated yuppies who didn’t understand our strange sailor’s spanglish and the inside jokes that develop over years and months of such early morning proximity.
On weekends we would sometimes work the night shifts, drinking beer and serving coffee until midnight. Then we’d go next door to the struggling Mexican restaurant and José would drink another beer while I sobered up before driving home. Only then would we sometimes have conversations resembling anything serious.
– What are you going to do with your life? he’d ask me, wondering why anyone with a university degree would still be working at a coffee shop.
– I dunno, work in restaurants, factories, on farms, on trains. One day I’ll write a book. Until then I’m just gathering material.
– Pinches gringos, guey.
One Saturday night, after finishing a night shift, José went to go meet Jared, a mutual friend, at the Leucadian, our local dive bar where middle aged beach bums and young indie hipsters would pretend that they belong together.
The next morning Jose and I were to open shop. I’ve written this story before:
I’ll never forget – it was about a year and a half ago – when Jose and I were supposed to be working together at 6 in the morning. Then at 6:30 he comes in and he’s bleeding and there’s bits of glass poking out of his forearms. I’ve never seen a face so expressionless before.
He was out the night before with another friend of ours, Jared at a local bar, the Leucadian. Neither one of them should have been driving – but after having a burrito at Juanitas to sober up, Jared said he was ok to drive. It was already 3 in the morning. Jared was driving Jose’s new white Honda Accord, which he had been saving up all his tip money for. At a notoriously unsafe dip on Vulcan Avenue the car bottomed out and then flipped over landing upside down on the sidewalk. Jared died immediately. Jose was unscathed except for some minor cuts by the glass. No bruises, no broken bones. He was asleep and when he woke up the car was in midair and when he realized what had happened, Jared was already dead.
A couple months later Jose’s wife gave birth to their first son, Jared. Neither one – at least at the time – could pronounce his name correctly. Jose wanted his son to be a doctor or engineer. He could never understand why someone like me, with the opportunity to get a college degree, would want to work in factories and on farms. In fact, he told me I never would, that it’s not what middle-class White Americans end up doing.
José and Jared
Of course, he was right. But on days like today, waking up at 5:25 a.m., I try and fail to figure out how I’ve come to this point. How the ball of yarn unravelled.
It was exactly five years ago that I first started this blog. Those words read like they belong to someone else. I can’t relate to their author. I wonder if it will be the same five years from now.
Thank you for sharing your early morning reflections. Amazing story as life is full of serendipities.
Congrats on 5th anniversary of El Oso blog – looking forward to read more of interesting stories and life adventures.
If you remember to take a photo of San Diego dawn – would be nice to remind myself. Flickr is fine.
5:25 is a special time, you’re right. I’ve discovered that there is no better tactic to getting stuff done than to wake up early, before it gets light, and work through sunrise. There’s a feeling of secret brotherhood that you have with everyone who you know is doing the same thing.
I had never heard the story about José and Jared before – I wonder if José was prescient or just an effective stereotyper? Maybe when you spend enough time with a person, the predictive power you have as to their life path gets better.
I read that blog post – it just sounds like a much younger version of you doing a journal style post. Who knows that 2014 David will think of 2008 David’s writing?
Happy Birthday, el-oso.net.
I like the words of the author of this post, and hope to know the author of that post in five years.
Here’s to the material the skein of fate brings you next, David—
(and Greg, surely you mean the camaraderie of everyone awake in the early hours—the global sisterhood races the sun to the day as well…)
I woke up for most of my life at around that time for early morning prayer. There is something refreshing about being up just before sunrise. The crisp air on your face. When I was in school I always found it the best time to study.
Now David, about that book..
I’m glad that after 5 years you’re still blogging.
And damn… in the first post you mention MySpace. Wow. That is a different Oso.
Excellent post. I worked at an auto parts store for a few years during jr. high and high school with the same type of persons. Good hard working people. Street philosophers who have come from the school of hard knocks. They also have a great perspective of life, different than a person born in the U.S., because they often having been raised in Mexico or another part of Latin America in poverty and then been transplanted to the US. I learned a lot about life during my formative years at the auto parts store. Like you, some of the best parts were cracking jokes all day with generous helpings of the word “guey”. It sure made the day go faster. I laughed when you responded “tu mama te manda saludos”. Very typical of the great banter. Can’t imagine saying that now in my corporate job.
I believe that different parts of the day and night definitely have different effects on us. When I get up early and go work out or meditate, I feel I have accomplished a lot by 10 am. The air seems cleaner outside, the light cast by the rising sun is absolutely warm and gorgeous. Lots of bird activity sounds great, too. No need to screw up the moment by inserting headphones into my ears. The day seems to go faster, too.
Now that I have a new baby, our first, the sense of time has gotten more precious and more convoluted at the same time. Precious because time and the days pass by way too fast. I don’t have enough time to do everything that I want or need to do. Convoluted because I am awake at all hours of the day and night since the baby was born in order to help my wife attend to the baby’s needs, then sometimes I cannot go back to sleep. With that kind of schedule, it gives you a new perspective on the different parts of the day and night.
Congrats on the 5 years. I am relatively new to your blog, but I like your work. You have opened my eyes on a few subjects/issues and you have good photos. Saludos from Camarillo and from Time the Conqueror.
Thanks all. It’s been a fun five years. I hope the next five years can keep up.
You’ll be blogging from a campfire soon, brotha man. Long live the internets!