My Body Thinks We're Still at Sea

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On a ship, time doesn't work the way it does on land. You have watches — four hours on, eight off — and the body calibrates. It learns to wake when the watch changes, not at the alarm but before it, already alert, already functional.

The 0300 watch on the North Sea in February is not something you forget. The cold of the bridge. The radar sweep. The crew in their bunks. You're there. The body provides this without complaint for forty-six years.

Retirement was supposed to fix that. I can sleep until any hour I choose.

My body considered this an interesting theory. 05:47 this morning. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before.

My body wakes at 05:47 every morning with the calm authority of someone who has somewhere to be. It is catastrophically wrong about this. I have nowhere to be. I haven't had anywhere to be for two years. My body does not appear to have been cc'd on that email.

What I didn't expect is how good the early mornings actually are. The quality of light, the particular quiet of an hour that hasn't been claimed yet. The body was right about the 05:47. I've stopped arguing with it.

The full piece — and what the body's refusal to retire actually reveals — is on Substack today. Paid. Subscribe for $10/month or $80/year.

Subscribe — theoldgreythinker.substack.com

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