I remember you....

I remember you, I think to myself as I step out into the blackness and walk toward the carport. When I get to the jeep, I click on my key light and throw my work clothes and backpack into the front seat. I'm instantly reminded of last fall when the fire season was winding down and I started my "off season" training of going to the gym before work started and it gives me a feeling of something familiar and solid.

The pitch black mornings that are still slightly warm are an intermediate step between the chaos of summer and the routine of winter. Winter days begin much earlier when our work schedule changes to a 7am start. It's a harsh reality being as I always think of winter as a time to catch up on all the sleep I lose over the summer. Winter is a time of regeneration, retreating back into slumber, hibernating. Maybe that was when I got laid off during the winters. In order to make it to work at 7am and be able to hit the gym beforehand, I have to be up at 4:15... at the latest. That's early no matter what time you go to bed.

Winter days are filled with darkness. Darkness when I load up the jeep in the morning and drive to the gym- keeping my eyes as wide and alert as possible for little beady eyes that signify a deer in the road. Darkness as I leave the gym and drive to work. And then darkness falls again before I leave work, due to the extended shifts we work. Four 10hr days instead of five 8hr days. Yep, that gives us 3 days off, the first I usually sleep through to try to make up for the lost sleep during the week. It's pretty harsh.

Hopefully this year I will learn to embrace it, instead of driving to work saturated in bitterness about why I'm so tired and how makes it so much more likely that I will hit a deer. I'd like to practice something I've read about in articles on sleep, and that is to get up around the same time everyday and go to bed around the same time everyday. Which is why I'm up this morning so early, even though it's a non-workout day. So for now, because work starts at 8:30am, I wake up at 5am, eat breakfast and go to the gym, and then head to work. I come home, eat dinner and go to bed. No time to stay up late if I have to be up that early.

However, getting up at 4:15am in the winter on my days off might be a hard sell. But it's so much easier to handle when your body gets used to the routine. I don't know what you do with yourself with 4 hours of darkness left in your morning. Maybe I'll finally get around to painting my bedroom.