I’ve never been a morning lark. It took a pandemic for me to discover the 4:45 a.m. setting on my alarm.

If you are reading this blog post years after it was written in August 2020, you may remember back to the time of COVID-19, when the world slowed and life changed. In Ontario Canada, where I live, we went into what most people called “lockdown” in mid-March 2020, instructed to stay home except to shop for essential supplies in a bid to slow the virus spread. Those restrictions gradually lifted, in increments, through the summer of 2020, although health authorities still limited the number of people who could be indoors in one space, mandated physical distancing of two metres between people wherever possible, and made indoor mask-wearing mandatory.

A neighbour commented, about a month into the lockdown, that many of the vendors at the St. Lawrence Market in downtown Toronto were still open, but there were few shoppers on weekdays. I started booking a couple hours away from my work-from-home duties on Thursdays to do a market grocery run. My work, leading communications for a charity, got busier and it became impossible to get away regularly on a weekday between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. Yet I didn’t want to go to the market on Saturdays, amid larger crowds.

And thus was born the new 4:45 a.m. setting on my phone alarm.

The St. Lawrence Market opens at 5 a.m. on Saturdays. Over the summer, I’ve perfected the routine: shopping pull cart and cloth bags into the car trunk the night before; clothes, wallet, keys, face mask laid out. Up, quick wash, dress, and out the door, quietly, in 10 minutes. It’s a successful exit if I manage to do this and my partner sleeps on, not hearing me leave.

The first time I did this in June, the sunrise glinted to the east as I left our Cabbagetown neighbourhood around 5 a.m. Now into August, the sky remains indigo at that hour.

First, I go into the lower tent market with the seasonal once-a-week vendors selling breads, eggs, vegetables, fruits; also sausages, meat pies, sweet baking and more. Confusingly, these folks used to be in what was known as the North Market, north of the iconic St. Lawrence building. The “North Market” structure was torn down in 2016 and still isn’t rebuilt, the process slowed by significant archeological finds that needed addressing following excavations.

At 5 a.m., even some vendors are a bit sleepy-eyed. But there are no lineups and everything is freshly loaded onto the sales tables. It’s easy to keep your two-metre distance. There are shoppers who have made this early start their routine for years: these regulars and the vendors have cheery chats, concluding with the same sign-off: “See you next week!”

After I’m done at the tent market, it’s off to the main market building for the rest of the grocery list.

On my first early market adventure, as was my habit when I’d go St. Lawrence on Saturdays around 10 a.m. in pre-COVID times, I picked out farm-grown flowers from one of the tent vendors and asked her to hold them for me so they could stay in water until I was done shopping. Rookie mistake: by the time I had finished shopping at the main market – fish and seafood from Mike’s Fish Market, cheeses, yoghurt, coffee beans, just-baked St. Urbain bagels, and staples from the tucked-away Dominos Foods on the lower level – I emerged to find a lineup around three sides of the market tent. I spent 20 minutes in the two-metre-apart waiting line before I could re-enter the tent and retrieve my paid-for bouquet.

Now, I’ve added a bucket of water tucked into the footwell of the car’s back seat to my pre-shop routine. Flowers and the first round of tent shopping go back to the car; once those are stowed away, with flowers happily in water, I wheel off to the main market building for round two.

By the time I’m done at the main market, the lower market has its lineups and sun reflecting off east-facing glass buildings dapples the west front of the tent.

I walk by with my pull cart to the Green P lot with its $1/hour market-day fee, load up the car, and drive home: mask into the laundry, scrub hands and put the food safely away. My naturally lark-like partner has made coffee by then, and we enjoy our first cup on our patio with a fresh croissant or other market treat, all before I’d normally wake up.

I’ll trade the freedom to wander the market at ease, wearing a mask and squirting hand sanitizer every few stops, for those few hours of lost sleep. I can always take a nap, later in the day.

All photos: Kelley Teahen