Without question early morning is my favorite time of day. Has been for years, certainly since I moved out of New York City in 1987 and took a job working on an upstate New York horse farm, a job that had me at the farm at five o’clock in the morning.

Now, there are those of us who are at ease with getting out of bed, blazing through their morning tasks and flying out the door in a dazzlingly brief period of time. Not me. I find the notion of having to leave home unsettling in the first place. Having to leave in a rush is unbearable. The farm was a 30-minute drive from where I lived so I’d get up at three a.m., plenty of time to have coffee, read, write, hang out with Bubba, the Siberian Husky who’d helped me reclaim my ability to leave the house after I was shot and held up again at gun point months later.

Ever since those first days out of the city early mornings have become a sanctuary of peace, healing, free thought, the intoxicating ineffable wonder of a new day emerging, adventure and, in a very real way for me, safety. Why the latter is true I’ve yet to discover, but it is.

Now early morning into mid-morning is dominated by writing. But there is a ritual. I set up the coffee machine the night before so, when I wake, I come into the nest (my writing room), click on a heater and turn on the PC. Then I go downstairs,push the button on the coffee machine and return to the nest. If my New York Rangers played the night before I check to see how they did. I then glance through email, do some chess problems, look at the homepages of NY Times and NPR, and during all this I may listen to Imus in the Morning. I then go downstairs, pour the first coffee of the day, return to the nest, have my morning coffee with Christine by phone or Skype or in person when she is here, and then hunker down to the day’s writing.

After my day’s writing is complete, I go downstairs, start up the fire in the wood stove and, once the fire is going, read.

Early morning, now and forever, my favorite time.