8'ams and 9 Year olds

I taught at 8am this morning.

Yesterday was fourth graders. Today it’s 8am. I know what some of you are thinking: Davey- when did you anger the Gods?

I didn’t anger the Gods. In fact these lovely humans are the students of my dear friend Anne, and I am covering for her while she is in New York on a field trip.

Still, these classes are outside of my comfort zone and as a good daily blogger I look for inspiration wherever I can.

The kids yesterday were fine. I blocked a scene for their upcoming play and the kids not on stage had a project that kept their volume at a manageable roar. I have them again today so I am expecting chaos.

I got home exhausted, and with an 8am class looming, at 9pm I was in the bed.

How quickly night becomes the dawn.

6:30- my alarm goes off. Figuring it was a mistake, I reached for my phone and knocked a full glass of water off my night stand. I decided to just pretend it didn’t happen, and fell back asleep.

6:38- second alarm. Perhaps I had angered the Gods after all. It was then I remembered that this wasn’t an accident. This was intentional. I had to go teach acting to 9th graders at 8am. This was not a drill.

Last Night Davey realized that Morning Davey would not be excited about the 6:30 alarm, so Last Night Davey laid out Morning Davey’s outfit the night before. I thanked my Past Self and used my last minutes of sleepiness to slip into my clothes, splash cold water on my face, and start the day.

This is not my first 8am Rodeo. I taught at 8am class during my second semester at the College of Charleston. I was myself in a garage apartment on James Island. The class was small. It had maybe 8 people and they wanted to be there about as much as I did. On the third day of the semester I overslept. I woke up at 8:30 with a pit in my stomach and emails from my students. From that day on I set no fewer than 10 alarms. The first at 6:15 and the 7:22. Even my cat was like, “Dude what ARE YOU DOING!!!!!”

At the beginning of the semester I would leave the house in darkness, but as the we approached the Vernal Equinox, as winter melted into spring, the mornings got brighter. Gone was the dark, and here were the pink clouds streaking the baby blue sky. It was beautiful. That is what I experienced this morning.

And while it doesn’t make getting out of bed any easier, it does make me glad I did it.

*Picture courtesy of Kerrie-Brown Seymour