I’ve never been one for getting up early—willingly, that is—at least not for the kind of day that is like every other day. It we are birding internationally, and the guide says we will need to leave the lodge at 4:30 am, I don’t have any trouble getting up at all. But, of course, I was exhausted the previous day and fell into bed as soon as dinner was over.

When I was a teenager, I remember telling my mother that my ideal schedule would be to go to bed at 2 am and get up at 10. There was only one problem with adopting this schedule during the week, however, and that problem was called school. Because I had a bus ride of nearly twenty-five miles, I needed to be in my driveway, waiting to be picked up a little after 7 o’clock, five days a week.

My father was always the one who acted as my alarm clock. He would come to my room at 6:30 and say, “Winona, it’s time to get up.” Five minutes later, he would repeat his visit and restate his message. This time, though, there was an ominous postscript: “I’ll bring a glass of water with me if you’re not up in five minutes.”

It was so hard to wake up and clamber out of bed—especially in the winter, as the bedrooms were not heated. But it was always a struggle to climb out and lurch about, trying to locate my clothes, my books, and whatever else I was awake enough to remember. But I needed to demonstrate that I was awake and working towards that 7:10 deadline if my father returned before I stumbled into the kitchen.

And why was the offer of a glass of water able to galvanize me into an admittedly, rather befuddled state of action? The answer is simple. My father was not bringing a glass of water for me to drink. If I were not awake and on my feet, he would stand by the bed, the glass balanced delicately on his palm, dipping his fingers into the water, and shaking drops of water on me. Then, if I were still not responsive, he would upgrade to pouring small amounts of water onto me. Fortunately, we never reached the third and final stage, where his last-ditch plan was to fling the entire contents of the glass over my recumbent form. I sometimes tried fuzzily to calculate whether I could have a minute or two more of sleep, before he returned, but I was unwilling to see whether or not he would carry out his threat. I knew him too well. He would not hesitate a moment, even though both of us knew my mother would be quite unhappy to have to deal with the wet bedding that would result.

This morning, I lay in bed, knowing it was 6:30 and I needed to get up. There was no hard deadline; I hadn’t set the alarm or anything. I knew, though, that there were many things that needed doing. I needed to weed a flower bed, bake some cookies for lunch, revise a manuscript that a beta reader had returned, jot down a couple of ideas for the next book that had occurred to me in the night. But it was so comfortable just lying there. The heat of the previous day had drifted away during the night and the morning was deliciously cool. I thought of all the things I needed to do and started prioritizing which needed to be done first. But I was so comfortable. Did I really have to get up? Perhaps I could slip back into another hour or so of refreshing sleep. Then the rooster that recently moved into our neighborhood started crowing and the possibility of more sleep was gone. Most definitely gone. I didn’t even need a glass of water to get me on my feet.