Last night I tossed and turned for hours. I stopped looking at the clock. It was depressing to see the time pass. Finally I felt into a restless sleep. I couldn’t get comfortable and kept waking up to rearrange myself. Henry wanted out around eight so I went downstairs and let him out then crawled back into bed hoping to fall asleep. I did and didn’t wake up until close to 12:30. I had my coffee and read the Globe. That was my Morning. It is now my afternoon.

When I was a kid, I Hated being forced to go to bed. Some mornings I hated being woken up for school. I remember my mother used to shout up the stairs to get us awake. We’d try to ignore her, but that never worked. We’d slowly make our way downstairs to the kitchen. Breakfast was usually on the table. It was sometimes cereal, hot or cold, sometimes a soft boiled egg with cut toast for dunking and other times it was just toast and cocoa.

When I was in college, I hated early morning classes. Sometimes I’d sleep through them and miss one. Other times I’d get to class, but I’d nod off and only catch myself when my head would droop. Back then I was a night person.

In Ghana I turned into an early morning person. My bedtimes were never late. There was no TV to watch so I’d read a bit before turning off the light. I think I was in bed by nine. Roosters often woke me up, but if they didn’t, the students did. They swept the compound every morning and I heard the swishing outside my window. I didn’t mind as the mornings were my favorite time of the day.

On my trips back to Ghana, old habits surfaced quickly. I was in bed early after reading a while. The only difference was I read my iPad instead of a book. A rooster crowed outside my window most mornings and woke me up. That gave me smile.

At a store in Hyannis, I bought a wooden rooster which crows when you press its head down. The sound is exactly a rooster. I let the rooster crow just about every morning. I love that toy.