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Essay to Be Read at 3 a.m.

Alethea Black was born in Boston and graduated from Harvard in 1991. Her debut story collection,I Knew Youd Be Lovely (Broadway, 2011), was chosen for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program and as Book of the Week on Oprah.com. The winner of the 2008 Arts & Letters Prize, Black lives in Pawling, New York.

why I write at night. For some reason, its when my corner of the Earth is turned away from the sun that my inner res blaze. Id say more than 80 percent of my rst book was written after midnight. My editor jokes about receiving emails from
I DONT KNOW

NADINE RAPHAEL

me with a 4:15 a.m. time stamp, and my agenta passport-certied morning person, as perhaps all agents must behas known from our rst correspondence that Im available any time not before noon. I know it smacks of ingratitude to question the peculiar demands of ones muse; I realized years ago its preferable just to go wherever your process leads you rather than have an opinion about it. But I cant help it. Ive often pondered the link between inspiration and darkness and wondered exactly what part of the human psyche springs to life at night. Weve long known that certain people are steadfastly more nocturnal than othersits the old owls vs. larks phenomenon. What weve never fully understood is why. Why do I do my best work in the middle of the night? Its freer of certain distractions, granted. I cant zip to the post ofce, or make a Trader Joes run, or call one
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of my sisters at three in the morning the way I can at three in the afternoon. If there are twenty-four-hour dry cleaners on the planet, they have yet to make it to my town in upstate New York. But there are, as anyone with Internet access knows, entire kingdoms of after-hours distractions at least as inviting as the aisles of Trader Joes. So there must be more to it than that. Even in junior high and high school, I seemed to have more energy and greater mental clarity at night. I consistently found myself doing the lions share of my homework during the wee hours. Of course, the school bus came at 7:00 a.m., so Id compensate by taking a three-hour nap when I got home, then start the cycle all over again. This used to inadvertently antagonize my mothermore of a believer in the virtues of behavior that falls in the middle of the bell curve than Iand whenever she discovered me sleeping, she would turn the lights on and help me to my feet. My mother was hardly unique. A person with a tendency toward nocturnality or to use the scientic classication, someone of the eveningness chronotypeis not necessarily cultures golden child. We are often thought of as lazy or antisocial or mildly deviant. Never mind the cloying epigrams Early to bed, early to rise, The early worm, and so on; the entire clockwork of the commercial world seems to be rigged against us. But what if preferring the moon to the sun were less of a choice than we think? A study published in the April 27, 2007, issue of the journal Science investigated whether some people may become more active at night because of their genes. The experiment was conducted by scientists from the Medical Research Council Mammalian Genetics Unit in Oxfordshire, England; the MRC Laboratory for Molecular Biology in Cambridge; and their colleagues at New York University. One of the key components in regulating circadian rhythm is a protein known as CRY (cryptochromes). Monitoring a group of mice, the researchers observed that some of the mice operated not on the usual twenty-four-hour cycle but on a twentyseven-hour one. They then isolated a genetic similarity among the mice that had a tendency to stay up late: they all possessed a variant of FBXL3, a strand of genes that break down proteins in the body. Those mice with this particular strand of FBXL3 exhibited a slower breakdown of the protein CRY, resulting in a longer circadian cycle. The gene subsequently came to be known, perhaps not surprisingly, as the Afterhours gene, or AFH. In fact, night-owl tendencies are estimated to be at least 50 percent genetic in origin, according to sleep experts such as Steven Brown, a scientist at the University of Zurich. In a different study, at Stanford University, researchers discovered variations in the CLOCK gene (short for circadian locomotor output cycles kaput),
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where one genotype displayed an increased preference for eveningness, and the other an increased preference for morningness. Of course it makes genetic sense that there would be social advantages to members of a group having different peak times of sleep, with certain people able to stay vigilant late into the night and others able to work productively at dawn. Its hypothesized that the division into larks and owls has its roots in the Stone Age; early risers excelled at hunting and gathering, while night owls specialized in protecting and defending against predators. That this behavioral variance was observable even in lab mice will come as no surprise to anyone whos had rsthand experience with just how deeply entrenched a preference for nighttime can be. But it feels dishonest to attribute it all to genetics, to lay it all at the sleepless little mouse feet. (Incidentally, miceas you may be unfortunate enough to knowbecome active at night, along with minks, jaguars, wolves, wombats, scorpions, the western woolly lemur, the paradoxical frog, the spectacled bear, and the Panamanian night monkey. And, of course, crickets and reies.) Even with these intriguing genetic discoveries tucked in my cap, midnight after midnight, typing away, I found myself wondering if there might not be something more intangible at worksomething every bit as compelling, but in a less biological, more psychological, way. I can only speak for myself, but theres something about writing at night that feels . . . sneaky. Theres an outlaw quality to it, combined, oddly enough, with a sense of being safe. It has an anaerobic, subterranean feel; its as if Im working beneath the soil, toiling in secret, trying to cultivate something hidden and occult. At the same time, theres a wide hunger at work, an almost sidereal reach. For me, the nightthese hours that Shakespeare dubbed so hallowd and so graciousis the perfect time to write, since Im always writing in the metaphorical dark: sightless, groping my way. A PaRLIaMENT
OF

NIGHT OWLS

HU M A N S H AV E B E E N able to design their own schedules since the invention of re, and history is full of famous nocturnals, including Percy Bysshe Shelley, John Milton, James Joyce, Marcel Proust, Fran Lebowitz, T. S. Eliot, and Antoine de Saint-Exupry, who said: Night . . . When man reassembles his fragmentary self and grows with the calm of a tree. (Youll notice that these examples are all writers; people with the freedom of a freelance schedule will be the rst to concede that rising early, for many, is not a matter of choice.) Then there was Jimmy Walker, mayor of New York City in the 1920s, who claimed it was a sin to go to bed on the same day you
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got up; and Nan Kempner, a New York socialite who was such a dedicated evening person that at her funeral, Kenneth Jay Lane said: Nans very sorry she couldnt be here today, but as you all know, she would never want to see any of you, no matter how much she loved you, before lunch. And of course we mustnt forget Keith Richards, who would regularly show up for work at eight oclock at night while the Rolling Stones were recording Exile on Main Street at Nellcte. In an interview, he explained: Its not me being arrogant or anything. Its just that I was asleep. Theres no shortage of people who adhere to a nonsolar activity standard. On the Internet (naturally) I discovered the Night Owl Caf, where one of the advertisements was for an imaginary skin protection product called moonscreen (SPF 0). I also found such sites as idontdomornings.com, where Nighttimers can buy CARPE NOCTEM or UP AT THE CRACK OF NOON T-shirts. Another hub featured a reading list for night owls, night-owl humor, work strategies for night owls, posters for night owls (a kitten with both paws over its eyes and the caption: Morning havz a avr . . . iz a very very bad vr) (Ive never understood, do these kittens have Russian accents? Just very poor spelling?). Theres even a Nocturnal Society, replete with an ofcial anthem and something called the Nocturnal Manifesto. Sadly, the presence on their website of a quiet version of the Manifesto made me chary of clicking on it. Perhaps its best that some mysteries of the night remain a mystery. And the tendency isnt limited to the animal kingdom; were a class of creature not restricted to humans, wombats, and Russian kittens. Some owers wait until nightfall to release their perfumes, and I found a wonderful list, compiled by Meghan Ray, a curator at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, of plants that come to life after dark. Part of what was wonderful were their names: angels trumpet, moonbeam, snow-on-the-mountain, foxtail lily, and sweet alyssum. Rays list had a lot to do with creating a color palette that would be resplendent by moonlight and including owers that are known to have a strong sweet smell, particularly after dusk. But of course there are ora that bloom only at night, which might be dubbed noctiora, if the name hadnt already been snagged by an alt Goth band (instead theyre known as vespertine). If youre reading this after 2:00 a.m., and you had been born a plant, you might have been a moonower, a dames violet, or a sweet rocket. BIRTHING
THE

MOON

I D O N T M E A N to sound auroraphobic. Im a big fan of the idea of morning. I love the commercials for it: the steaming cup of coffee, the soft yellow light, the mist rising
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off the lake, everything fresh and dewy and new. How often Ive longed to be that woman in pressed pajamas sitting in her Adirondack chair, getting a head start on the days work with a sly smile. But thats never me. No, Im the crazy-haired woman with the sleep mask strapped to her forehead crossing the street in her nightgown to ask the man with the jackhammer if he honestly thinks its legal to make that kind of noise before noon. Its not that I havent tried; I may be a bit contrarian, but I am not immune. I have a friend who, even when calling me at ten oclock at night, begins every message: Good morning, my sleeping beauty. I have ears. I hear the judgment in his voice. So when Newsweek ran an article in June 2008 called Nine Ways Night Owls Can Become Morning People, I gave it a whirl. The list was everything youd expect: Stick to a routine, try to get natural light in the morning, take sleeping pills if necessary, dont read or watch TV in bed, dont eat large meals or drink alcohol late at night, cut down on caffeine, dont exercise in the evening, see a sleep specialist if problems persist, and try not to judge yourself if none of the above works. I attempted to live by their rules, feeling as if I were in prison for a crime I didnt commit, but it was no use. Have you ever met a person who could drink seven cups of coffee and still be exhausted? Now you have. (I gured caffeine before 11:00 a.m. didnt count.) Have you ever woken up with a hangover even though you didnt have a drop to drink? The only thing that came to mind, morning after morning during the weeks experiment, was that great passage by Kingsley Amis in Lucky Jim:
The light did him harm, but not as much as looking at things did; he resolved, having done it once, never to move his eyeballs again. A dusty thudding in his head made the scene before him beat like a pulse. His mouth had been used as a latrine by some small creature of the night, and then as its mausoleum. During the night, too, hed somehow been on a crosscountry run and then been expertly beaten up by secret police. He felt bad.

I felt bad. And I didnt, needless to say, write a word. Was there a medical explanation for why some people wake up early singing songs from Oklahoma! and I wake up early feeling like Lucky Jim? Hans Van Dongen, research professor at the Sleep and Performance Research Center at Washington State University, says yes. He and his colleagues helped discover a small group of brain cells called suprachiasmatic nuclei that emit signals to the body to synchronize the time of day. This literal biological clock runs two hours ahead in morning people and two hours later in evening people. Also, levels of the stress hormone cortisol typically peak around 7:00 a.m., regardless of what time
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you go to sleep, and one of cortisols main functions is to increase blood sugar, in anticipation of activity. But some people have whats known as a cortisol awakening response (CAR), which is an increase of cortisol levels by about 50 percent twenty to thirty minutes after awakening. Researchers at the Department of Clinical and Theoretical Psychobiology at the University of Trier, in Germany, discovered that the increase in free cortisol after awakening was signicantly greater in morning types than in evening types. My father told me that I displayed a preference for the night even as an infant, and Dr. Nancy Collop, director of the Emory Sleep Center in Atlanta, conrms: Some people have this tendency right from the minute they come out of the womb. In fact, I was born at night1:30 a.m. Boston time, to be precise. I do most of my writing at night, as you now know, so I shouldnt have been surprised by this next fact, but I was: Most women go into labor at night. In the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, researchers from Florida State University College of Medicine and the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center write: Studies have shown that labor occurs primarily in the night/morning hours. Recently, we identied the human myometrium as a target for melatonin (MEL), the neuroendocrine output signal coding for circadian night. In other words, melatonin, which is secreted at night (its known as the hormone of darkness), was shown to enhance the contractility of muscle cells in the womb, helping to induce labor. Im willing to wager that more babies are conceived at night too. And what else, you ask? Well, if you were to receive a phone call from Sweden saying youd won a Nobel Prize, youd be more likely to receive this call at night than in the morning. However, if you were to die in a tornadothis is more likely to happen in the morning. Your chances of having a root canal? Much, much greater in the morning. In fact, morning and root canals go together like midnight and orgies. But for the sake of objectivity, Id like to point out that some good things do happen in the morning. For instance . . . its when the mail arrives. A S E pa R a T E P E a C E TH E R E A R E P E O P L E wholl tell you that owls are more creative than larks, but I dont buy it; Ive known far too many gifted morning peoplemany of them brilliant writersfor that to carry much weight with me. Besides, to imply that early risers are all plodding idiots is as unjust as to suggest that Nighttimers are all lazy libertines (aforementioned midnight orgies aside). Its not that one is better than the other. Were just differentthats the whole point.
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And its good to be different. In fact, one denition of nocturnality suggests that it is, essentially, a form of sharinga type of ecological niche differentiation in which the resource thats being partitioned is time itself. The full range of valences that pull me toward evening remains a strigine mystery. But there is one thing thats obvious but bears articulating: At this hour of night, most of the other people in my life are asleep. Eventide has become inextricably linked with a peculiar brand of solitude, a delicious feeling of being solitary but not lonely. In the same way that its possible to feel alone in a crowded room, for me, the solitude of night has always held an inexplicable richness. When I was a teenager and rst discovering the nocturnal tendency in myself, I came across a Donald Justice poem titled Poem to be read at 3 a.m., and its been one of my favorites ever since.
Excepting the diner On the outskirts. The town of Ladora At 3 a.m. Was dark but For my headlights And up in One second-story room A single light Where someone Was sick or Perhaps reading As I drove past At seventy Not thinking. This poem Is for whoever Had the light on

Even though Id never been within six hundred miles of Ladora, I knew that person with the light on. Im still moved by the elegiac simplicity of this poem. I still wonder if it might have been one of the poems read at Donald Justices memorial. Its a curious thing, to consider at what time of day youll die. Sunrise has always felt like a departure time to me. To be born at night, and to die in the morningthat feels about right. Until then, Ill be the person in that room with the light on. Now N the suns coming up over the lake: time for me to go to sleep. n
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