I have been waking up early. So early some might actually call it late. This morning I got up and sat with a book in a lamp-brightened corner of a dark house.

It reminded me, oddly, of traveling with my dad. We’d drive almost everywhere we went, staying in generic chain hotels with identically stiff chairs with ottomans in the corner. Every morning I’d wake up to him sitting with a book or newspaper in a lamp-lit corner like that.

He was a moody guy. Funny and charming when he wanted to be, but just as often broodingly grouchy and anti-social. Those mornings in hotels, it strikes me now, he was always cheerful.

I am an early riser; the fact that he was awake before me was a reflection of insomnia. When I stirred, he eagerly announced the time and proclaimed: “not bad, Gina-la!” (If anyone in your life speaks Yiddish you know.) He saw early rising as some kind of moral vindication.

I prefer a good night’s sleep to moral vindication, but this morning, I felt an odd satisfaction at the thought of him saying, “5:30! Not bad, Gina-la.”