Look for the moon in the morning A reason to get out of bed BY LEDA SANFORD “What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.” —Leo Buscaglia I ’m a morning person. I’m sharpest in the “wee small hours of the morning...” as the song goes. So aging agrees with me. While my friends complain that now that they’re older they’re waking up at 4 and 5 a.m., I revel in this pattern that allows me to get a 44 GRAND MAY JUNE 2011 jump on the world. Because I work and live on the West Coast, I can start calling people on the East Coast at 5 a.m. and astound them that I’m up and at ’em so early. I can get in that morning walk with no excuses, and on winter mornings it’s enthralling to see the moon just before dawn. Between 5 a.m. and 7 a.m., I do much of my writing while watching the dawn break over Angel Island. (I live in Sausalito...heaven on earth.) It’s peaceful in the morning, and the feeling of a new beginning is evident with the rising sun. It’s a time to make lists of things to do and people to call. Television is our modern-day gift to the morning as well. We can tune in to the world, learn what happened as we slept, do photo: ©iStockphoto.com/eliandric