I got up at five o’clock this morning. It was into a shifted world I rose, one I haven’t entered for some time. Everything is very cold so early—the water in the pipes refuses to warm, and when I accidentally stepped onto the bathroom floor rather than the bathmat, I was sure I’d plunged my feet into ice water.

But early morning has its charms, as well. The faintly pleasing sensation of virtue both from rising before others and from triumphing over your own sloth, the sense that this time is more precious because it has been stolen. The feeling that everything you do while you would have been asleep is extra, more life than you would have had otherwise. The suspicion that you have started your day early and gotten the jump on the world. Delicious.