A week of mornings..

Posted on | February 23, 2007 | 7 Comments

Monday:
I’m stumbling to break into a new routine of writing in the morning before my thoughts are shattered with day. Now I wake up with dreams still trailing through my mind like the tails of wild horses, and there is nothing I can hold onto for sure. But it is a quieter time, now, with the restless cat circling my knees, as the before-dawn light spreads out above the blue of land and fog like a pale smudge of jam. I’m ready to at least sit and follow the words across the page.

*

Tuesday:
It’s early and I’ve wrapped my wet hair in a fleece blanket to stay warm. The house creaks as the heat comes on. Outside the mercury hovers near zero. Already daylight is smudging the clouds with pale gray and rose. I do not want to be awake today, tiredness clings to me, making my vision blurry.

*

Wednesday:
This morning the white-bread toast is gummy and the tea too sweat. I brought a handful of pecan halves upstairs, but I’m not interested now, in the dark before dawn when the temperature dips and the house is still.

*
Thursday:
The morning is frail and dark. My body aches from a lack of sleep, and my dreams tumbled around my mind like rocks in the dryer. Now day, and I’m anxious. No clean laundry, not enough time to accomplish the things I need to get done.
*

Friday:
Morning, just six hours after crawling under the heap of down comforters and closing heavy lids. Morning and the sky is so beautiful, I wish I could capture it just once the way it really appears, for those fleeting moments of dawn before day. Moments when everything still rests, and branches are quiet angled lines against the delicate expanse of sky.

This morning toast with raspberry jam, and hardly anything to write or say, except to keep the momentum of early morning waking. So I sip coffee from a tall mug and hear my baby’s voice rise up, waking his daddy, and greeting day, and though I’m tired, I’m grateful.

Category: The way I operate, Writing

Comments

7 Responses to “A week of mornings..”

  1. lizardek
    February 24th, 2007 @ 3:41 am

    What time do you get up and do this writing? You sound so sleep-tumbled. :)

  2. christina
    February 24th, 2007 @ 8:13 am

    I wake up 5:30ish. But the thing that matters is not what time I wake up, it’s what time I go to sleep the night before. I posted these because it’s so interesting to remember how each morning I stumble, I digress, and then finally, I get down to business and the writing I do is at least half way good.

  3. dcrmom
    February 24th, 2007 @ 10:32 am

    I love your way with words. As always. And toast with raspberry jam and coffee sounds so yummy right now.

  4. Elizabeth
    February 24th, 2007 @ 10:42 am

    go go go go !!!! it is so hard to push for that early morning time– but god, is it worth it– thank you for this reminder and inspiration.

  5. donab
    February 24th, 2007 @ 10:45 am

    I also get up early in the morning, with the intention of creating art, or at least walking on the ocean cliffs at sunrise, before work. Mostly, however, I drink coffee at my desk and read blogs. Over time, the getting up comes easier, and I’ve grown to love the quiet mornings alone in the house.

    My mom is a writer, and there were four of us kids. As long as I can remember, until we all moved out, she got up at 4 AM to write. It was her personal time, the only time she wasn’t Mom but Marlene. I always admired her commitment to it.

  6. Elaine
    February 24th, 2007 @ 10:57 am

    I really do need to work on waking early. Last night I climbed into bed at 8:30, exhausted with sickness and single parenting (Mark’s home Sunday). It was the first night all week I got more than 4 hours of sleep due to sick kids and sick self and restlessness at being alone. But I do find the world works so much better for me when I’m up early and moving towards the day.

    Who knows when I’ll get to start using that time to write. Right now, I’m nursing at 5am. Someday that’ll end.

  7. cheryl
    February 24th, 2007 @ 2:38 pm

    Loved this line:

    “Now I wake up with dreams still trailing through my mind like the tails of wild horses, and there is nothing I can hold onto for sure.”

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