Byron on the Brain

The other day, a friend of mine posted a quote from this poem on his facebook page. I immediately thought of two things: 1. Nobody writes this way anymore, and 2. I wish I could. I wasn't a fan of Romantic literature in university but it has it's moments. The companionship Byron alludes to in the line i've inscribed in bold is one I've felt often. Whether it's wanderlust or just my existentialism showing -i love it!

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where none intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar:

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal,

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

-Lord Byron

The Beauty of 6am

6 am. It's still dark out while I try to gather the wispy remnants of my dreams in the vain hope that I might be able to put them back together and rejoin their blissful depths. No such luck. My roommate knocks on the door: "We've got D today," she says, already sounding defeated. D is our trainer and his name has become synonymous with pain and suffering.

We've been living this same 6 am routine for months now. Alarm goes off. My clock is so ghetto that it doesn't have a snooze button, so I reset it and dive back into a semi-unconcious state for another 6 minutes. Get up, rummage through laundry for gym clothes. Brush teeth, grab yogurt and kiwi from fridge. Sift through the shambles of my room a second time for socks. Gym bag is packed and waiting. Hurry the roomie along before heading for the stairs. Boots on and through the backdoor to the frozen car. Cold bites at uncovered skin while we shovel off the car and scrape the windshield. Frigid air blasting from the dashboard, we drive off, eyes squinting at the pale shafts of light barely exposing the road.

We're late (inevitably). But so is D. The regulars, whose names I don't know, nod their heads in recognition as we walk by the rows of machines to the locker room. We are unfamiliar comrades, forging on in the growing light of dawn.