TPW fiction and nonfiction editor Sarah “Sally” Collins Honenberger writes a newspaper essay series as a “traveling novelist,” titiled On the Road Again. This 30th essay gives you a glimpse of the collection (and forthcoming book) and explains why you may not always get an immediate response for your submissions to writeditor@nlapw.org. With apologies for delay in advance, she encourages her Pen Women colleagues to share their creations and submit.

On the Road Again: Waking Early

By Sarah Collins Honenberger

It sometimes happens that the internal energy of an imminent trip departure wakes me before the sun has risen. Psychologists can talk all they want about how humans compartmentalize complicated or difficult issues, but my early waking is the opposite. Waking early means I’ve failed to compartmentalize. The to-do list becomes a mountain. For me, losing sleep is directly related to the swirl of decisions and actions that looms before leaving home. It’s not all bad, though. Aside from the extra time to consider and remember last-minute items, waking when the sky is a-borning reminds me the wonders of the night sky are only half of life on planet Earth.

This particular 5 a.m. awakening follows a week of helping with my two Baltimore granddaughters, aged 4 and 1. Stroller walks and bathtime shrieks, stacks of books with peekaboo flaps, and strawberry juice on everything. Enchanting and exhausting. My week is a temporary patch since their maternal grandparents returned to China on the other side of the globe. They’re watching the stars above Beijing blink and steady. They’re missing the soft slur of the baby settling into sleep as I watch Maryland’s tree line slowly blur from pale silver to hint of pink. Up and down the block of sturdy brick rowhouses, backyard motion sensors and bathroom nightlights dot the neighborhood. A car door slams. A dog barks.

After I run through my mental list of what goes back in the cooler and available highway options to avoid the holiday traffic on my way back to Virginia, I realize the silver sky has turned to pale blue and the black treetops are greening. The last star is gone. The birds are fully risen, an enthusiastic chorus of “good morning” greetings. Pajamas tucked away, toothbrush packed, I zip the suitcase and brace myself for last hugs and squirmy goodbyes.

It strikes me that Disney, for all its commercialism, is right about the circle of life. Other mornings, other stars, other neighbors, my own children as babies — the Earth turns, the sun rises, the moon wanes. The pattern never wavers. And yet with each minute, each nightfall, each sunrise, somewhere on the planet, a 4-year-old learns how to read another word and another. An acorn sprouts, a teenager falls in love, a grandfather dies. It happens in China. It happens in Baltimore.

In case you haven’t guessed, I’m a romantic. Most fiction writers are. To create people and obstacles with words, your imagination works overtime and that runs eventually to happy endings. Not necessarily slurpy scenes of adoration or brilliant financial success, but resolutions that solve problems and change lives for the better. There are thousands of platitudes I embrace, even as I dissect the whys and wherefores of how people hurt each other and search for understanding of their own limitations. In my stories, I’m searching for the universal in the everyday.

I once complained to a writing mentor that I didn’t have enough time to write with all my family and employment obligations. “Life gets in the way,” I said. And she replied, “On the contrary, life is what gives you something to write about.” So early waking and the contemplation of what happens in China when I’m in Baltimore is all part of the circle of life. It’s why I write and it’s why I sometimes rise early.