Why does a person get up in the morning? Some days it’s a way to escape dreams. For the past year, I’ve had this recurring nightmare that I was running late for my job at Gimbel’s, or at the jail, and the subway stopped. And I had to run, only my feet didn’t move. When I woke up, it was a relief.

But most days most people aren’t waking up from something. Most people are waking up toward something.

Why does a person get up in the morning? To watch the twilight turn golden on Glen Canyon. To see Sutro Tower and the cross on Mount Davidson climb out of the shadows.

The days are getting longer. This week (March 19th) holds the equilux, the date when we have as much daylight as we have darkness, the beginning of spring. Here’s a fun fact: Because the earth has an elliptical orbit, in the northern hemisphere spring lasts for 92.8 days, whereas in the southern hemisphere, they only get 89.8 days.

Why does a person get up in the morning? To see that the California lilacs outside my window have blossomed with crepuscula flowers, a Spanish term for that first purple first shade of dawn. Calla lilies burst between the weeds in our yard. Rosemary and lavender give off soft fragrance. The sky is bright blue as we are in the fogilux -- my own term for the period in San Francisco between the winter rains and June gloom.

As Tennyson said, “It’s spring, and a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.” As we race towards the solstice, for the first time ever, both of my sons are in love. Well, maybe they are in like. Hard to tell with Zane the playah, but Aidan has a date for a senior prom. He’ll be flying to Yakima in May for the formal, but more on that in a month or two. We bought him a suit to wear, and it’s the first pair of pants he has worn since the pandemic began that are not sweats.

In short, there is nothing better than a day in March near the San Francisco Bay, in the hemisphere that gets the longer spring.

This brings me to Crazy Mike. The thing I like least about him is that he makes it so hard to feel sorry for myself.

Why does a person get up in the morning? In my case, it was to make it to my radiation appointment (for my lung) at UCSF. The doctor promised me it wouldn’t take more than an hour. But then they laid me down on a narrow plank, tied down my arms, tied down my legs and told me to breathe regularly.

A robot arm hovered above me and zapped. And zapped. Ninety minutes later, a voice came over the intercom: “We’re 40% done.” The robot zapped. My nose itched. I couldn’t scratch. All four limbs went to sleep. The robot zapped. The intercom buzzed, “You’re not breathing regularly.” Who breathes regularly when they’re strapped down with a cyberknife aimed at their chest?

Two and a half hours after it began, the robot zapped its last zap, and I stood up. Then fell over.

My husband Brian drove me home, but I didn’t think he would get what I was kvetching about. My sons wouldn’t get it. The dogs wouldn’t get it. So I called someone who also had cancer so that I could complain to a knowing audience. Crazy Mike’s response: “Did you hear that Paul Alexander just died?”

“Who is Paul Alexander?” Turns out that he was the man in the iron lung. He contracted polio in 1952. Sister Lil had contracted polio near the same time, just before the vaccine was available, and she never had full use of her hand or her leg.

But this guy? His lungs stopped working and they placed him in a metal cylinder, enclosing his body from the neck down. He lived that way for more than 70 years. Graduated from Southern Methodist University. Earned a law degree. Wrote a memoir. His brother reminisced that in their last days together they found great joy sharing a pint or two of ice cream.

Who was I to complain? My lungs had cost me a morning in spring; his had cost him seven decades.

Why does a person get up in the morning? Sometimes for the blooming Ceanothus. Sometimes for love. Sometimes for the sunlight on the Golden Gate Bridge. Sometimes for that scoop of ice cream.