Morning Routine for Mere Mortals

For months, I've considered writing how I start my mornings, the routines that largely serve me. I usually enjoy reading how others begin the day. I haven't written the description because I've felt short on time. Often enough, I'm grinding against the routine anyway, thinking I need to do more.

I don't exercise or meditate in the morning. I fail to make and eat a healthy breakfast or pack a good lunch. I don't check my calendar and frame the day. I don't wake mindfully, breathe away anxiety, or consider what would bring me joy (other than having a pee). I don't begin with some creative act. I don't do the things I feel I should do, that would make me a good person. I've tried, but I guess I'm not that kind of good person.

Instead, I wake and lie in bed, wanting to rest, needing to pee, anxiously revving up about what has to be done so the world won't end. I turn myself out of bed, and go downstairs. I shut off the front lights, open blinds, and have that pee.

I empty the dishwasher. I boil water, measure and grind beans, brew a cup of coffee that I take to my desk. I handwrite three Morning Pages of thinking that often centers me. Then I read one passage from Daily Doses of Wisdom, one poem (I'm working through Billy Collins' Aimless Love and, if I feel there's time, one chapter of Meditations for Mortals.

In the kitchen, I wash my coffee cup. In the bathroom, I run hot water, lather my face with a brush, and shave with a safety razor. I shower and dress, pack my things for the office, and go.

This started with what I don't do because I'm trying to cope with the idea of not being able to do everything and also trying not to feel the obligation to do more and more. My Morning Pages and short readings, they serve me. Why can't I let that be enough?

Because "enough" feels like surrender and disaster in the making. Because I feel that I must do more, strive for more, and live up to my potential. Because I've learned that to do anything less is a sin, a mortal one.

The secret my morning routine tries to teach is that maybe I'm not so much a sinner as I am a human, and though it doesn't say so in my dictionary, "human" may be a synonym for "enough."

Public and Private

I prefer to write with pen on paper. There's no way for corporations, governments, or individuals to know what I write that way. But I'm typing this on the computer, my data tracked, and I'll publish this to the blog. So much for privacy.

For 3,802 days straight, I've written three Morning Pages by hand on paper. Thats' 11,406 pages no one is likely ever to see. What's the point of keeping that private?

My writing group sometimes ask if I'm going to gather my poems, find an agent, and try to publish. I suppose I should. More than Morning Pages, the poems are meant for others. But the work to publish feels like time away from other things and I'm focused now on writing and shaping of them, on the craft. For once, I don't need to put them out into the world and be told I'm a good boy.

Private writing focuses my attention on my motivations. I don't want to brag about the streak of Morning Pages as I did for years. There's nothing noble in the streak any more than getting out of bed and making coffee each morning. It's just a thing I do for me. I've gotten past needing to impress anyone else with it or even to explain the motivation to myself.

I may someday move to publish my poems. That may be what I want to do. I'll wait until I'm not chasing approval, until it's not about my ego. That's no way to overcome the habits of trying to satisfy others. I can overcome my traumas mostly in private and then see what I'm ready to do.

As for this switch from private pen and paper to public blog, I wanted it available for others to read. I'll likely never know if it has been read and so that can't be the motivation for me any more. It's enough to feel good without understanding all the reasons behind it. It's enough to accept the tension between private and public and know that I live somewhere between the two and moving back and forth as need be.

Sore Must Be The Storm

I was writing at my desk. The window o the left lets in good writing light. Behind me, the big living room window gives a view of the immediate world. As I wrote, I heard a hard thunk on that front window and knew what had happened.

Two tiny feathers stuck to the glass. On the patio below lay a small bird. My heart sunk. Things have been weighing on me more than usual.

In the opinion section of Sunday's paper a guy writes that the orange maggot is his president and mine too. Talk about making my heart sink. I worry our democracy is doomed and may have already died. I didn't think it was as fragile a thing as the hollow bones of a small bird, but there it lies.

Burdened by this sadness, I made some lunch and ate by myself wondering what to do about all these things. Feeling, despite my thoughts otherwise, that I have to do something.

After lunch, I came back to the living room to read. Just before sitting down, I looked at the window. The two tiny feathers have come unstuck and blown away. Dreading the sight of it, I looked down at the patio.

The bird had flown away.

Turns out that this thing I thought dead was only stunned. Had I watched, I would have seen its eyes open and its wings returning it to the air. I didn't have the patience for that, nor the faith.

Still, the bird flew away. Twenty minutes removed from despair, I find hope, the thing with feathers, has taken wing and my heavy heart along with it.

Republicans, Take It Away!

There's a great Looney Tunes cartoon in which Bugs Bunny, trying to create trouble, saws Florida off the continent, sets it afloat, and shouts, "South America, take it away!" It's a thought I've had often about Florida, but I'm taking a larger view post-election and am ready to give most of the country away.

In 2016, I was angry, ready to fight and save the republic from those silly Republicans.

Today, I'm angry again, but ready to give up. It's clear that I'm out of step with most Americans. About all I can say is I don't claim it was all rigged. We lost, fair and square.

As for fighting to save the republic, like Bugs Bunny, I'm giving the country a push and shouting, "Republicans, take it away!" It's their country now and they have to run it. I'll disagree with a lot of their ideas, but instead of fighting, I'll keep score and boo from the cheap seats.

I bet a lot of folks voted out of anger and maybe against their self-interests. I'm not mocking that, but when one of those folks complains about some change, I may smile and say, "it's your country now, I just live here."

A coward's way forward? Mostly, I'm just beaten down. I'm joining the new party of no. After having lost this badly, I need to rethink all my strategies and learn what the winners have to teach me. That includes the folks on the right and, much more importantly, that cartoon rabbit. He never loses.