Mornings: 4.27.13

When my kids were infants, days and weeks old, I would pray for the light to return.

Evening loomed like a heavy, musty blanket; it seemed preposterous that I was responsible for these tiny little pieces of life through so many hours of darkness.

The unknown lingers everywhere in the darkness, you know.

As the first wisps of light peered timidly into my windows in the morning, I'd breathe deeply, open my eyes, and thank everything that we'd made it through once more.

:::

My sister birthed her very own baby daughter last week.

I've been trying to impart bits of helpful knowledge, have tried to remember the things I'd wished someone had told me.

"The nights can feel long at the beginning.  The morning will come."

My stomach tightened for her.  I remembered that this was her time to wait for the light, not mine.

"She'll make it through, of course she will," I thought.

Of course she will.

MORNING 04.26.13

by Melody Washkevich

I don't have anything spectacular to say today.  No sweet sparrow's song to unleash from between my lips.  No thought that is bursting for release to be made home on the screen. Nor am I even sure what will come from the tip-tapping of my finger tips now as I prepare for my weekly share.

Some find fear in this uncertainty. In place of a writer's determination and inspiration you will then find anxiety and cyclic stalling.  For me...No, oh, no!

This is the place of beginnings.
This is the strongest place to form a foundation.
This is the best place to start the day.

So, today, I urge you to take up your challenges that have you at a standstill and then put them back down again. That is right. Put them down. Start at the beginning. Who knows what the morning of a whole day will bring?  Wake up! 

MORNINGS 4.25.2013

My first apartment, when I was nineteen, was on Blodgett St. in Burlington's Old North End.

I was so excited when I finally found it. I had been looking for a place for a couple months, driving up on the weekends from Brattleboro, crashing on dorm room floors and on living room couches.

In the meantime, still living my life in Bratt, I was learning how to read Tarot cards from a dear friend, taking my first college classes, and helping to build a house up on a mountain.

My friend, dear Chuck, had a dream about this new place, before I moved in, after I had met my new roommate and shook her hand. I had come home so excited, talking about it, wondering about it, worrying about it. His dream had something to do with the cherry tree outside the living room window. It bloomed and unfolded, he said, revealing two tarot cards slowly morphing into one, creating a conversation in meaning.

Years later, those cards' symbols are foggy in my memory—I haven't told the story in so long. He loved to tell it, and could do it so much better than I. Whatever was said, they heralded a message steeped in truth. (Whether or not I've experienced that truth over these years is something left for hindsight.)

Life away from home was hard at first—still is sometimes. The complexities of a budget, rent, utilities, groceries, etc. I couldn't find a decent job at first and my savings were running out. I ended up washing dishes at an Outback Steakhouse. I'd come home tired and wet and smelly.

But mornings in the kitchen on Blodgett St. were so lovely. We had a south-facing window. It shed light directly upon the kitchen table, where I sat with my morning cup of coffee. I drank it black in those days.

I made it then as I do now: with a single cup drip filter; putting the water on to boil first then preparing the grounds. The grounds and water combine, the steam issues forth, and the cup slowly fills.

Some quiet mornings, sitting at the kitchen table those first few minutes, the coffee still very hot, I’d witness something magnificent, something true that stills draws my attention.

I'd bring my face down close to my cup and see a fine mist shivering just above the black surface, fracturing violently at irregular intervals, like lake ice snapping into portentous cracks.

With the steam rising in curling ribbons, I’d sit in awe, hunched forward, staring, the time slowly passing. My roommate still asleep, the kitchen bright and breezy, I was grateful to witness the simplicity of this beauty, which had been, all the while, silently dancing beneath my nose—some bit of truth to start my day and carry me through.

MORNINGS: 4.24.13

by Shannon Herrick

 Ode to a Morning

I wake in a pool of sweat

and I know this morning will be different

I know because I don't want to clamp my eyes shut

when I perceive the hazy early light spreading

opening

I know because I rise and my head isn't swimming

floating

I know because I stand in the shower for a long time

and the water doesn't feel like tiny needles

driving into my skin

raw

 

I don't have to wipe the slate clean

It has been done for me 

It has come upon me like any other morning, I know

It is always a clean slate, I know

But I feel so different

I fell asleep on an island where the light made me wince
and the tea transformed itself to broken glass as it slid down my throat

I wake, washed upon a different shore
and the waves lap against my feet
tickling my mind and body into wakefulness

renewed
restored

It doesn't always feel like this
but the opportunity is there

Every morning we find ourselves on a strange new shore

A fresh wave of invincibility in the wake of illness

A fresh wave of pain in the wake of tragedy

A fresh wave of exhilaration in the wake of passion

A fresh wave of  anxiety in the wake of hitting "send"

Or it can just be fresh

Every time 

Maybe tomorrow I will just let it wash over me

but today I will ride the wave.

MORNINGS 04.23.2013

“People across Boston and surrounding suburbs have been told to stay indoors amid a massive police manhunt for one of two brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.....”

I had woken before my daughter. A rarity, but to be expected after a fitful night’s sleep filled with anxiety. Shootings at a Boston area college, officer down, one suspect fatally wounded, the other on the run. Morning had seemed unattainable.

A swirl of emotions and exhaustion clouded my brain as I checked my sleeping daughter one last time before heading into the living room. I clicked the power button on the radio. NPR had a special broadcast. “People across Boston and surrounding suburbs have been told to stay indoors amid a massive police manhunt for one of two brothers suspected of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombings.....”

I set about my morning routine, listening, thinking. An entire city on lockdown. A 19-year old child, who may have committed crimes beyond my comprehension was seriously wounded and on the run. Somewhere a mother had lost both her sons. One to death and one to today’s events. A manhunt and ultimately, I predict, a long prison sentence. Both gone to her as soon as they made the decision to attack a city. Meanwhile, my child was safe and asleep in our bed, just like every night since her birth 32 months earlier.

I folded laundry and organized my thoughts. Washed the dishes and tried to soothe my swirling mind. Behind me I heard the distinct and light steps of an awake and smiling girl.

“Hi Momma!”

“Good morning, sweetheart! Hungry?”

NPR droned on while I made my daughter pancakes. Speculation flowed from the speakers while I poured maple syrup onto her plate. She thanked me and smiled. Had the grieving mother had these moments, too? My thoughts must have shown on my face or maybe her perception is stronger than I could have imagined. Either way, my daughter looked at me through the steam rising from her breakfast, her big blue eyes sparkling.

“You ok, Momma? What’s happening?”

How was I to explain to her, in words she could understand, if I couldn’t comprehend a bit of it? What do you say to an innocent child? Her world is so happy, so full of goodness, so full of love. Maybe that was the answer. Maybe her question wasn’t so she could have an answer but so I could shift my perspective.

Her world is my world. It is so happy, so full of goodness, so full of love. She is the center of that world and is the shining bright beacon of hope for the future. I sat back for a moment and just watched her devour her pancakes. I smiled at her sweetness.

“I am ok, baby. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Momma!! I go play now.”

And just like that, her question was answered, her world was happy and she was off on another adventure. I picked up her plate and tiny cup and brought them to the sink. Out the kitchen window I could see the many signs of Spring in our yard. Robin’s hopped around in search of worms, the giant maple tree was pregnant with tiny new leaf buds. Our grass was making the shift from brown to green and the air was filled with the sounds of children laughing from the nearby schoolyard.

In the background NPR was still reporting. I chose to fill my heart with love and hope. I saw all the signs that we will be ok. We will grow and even thrive. The world is not a bad place-- it’s just that people do bad things, sometimes. But, in order for them to truly be a force of evil, we must let them win. We must succumb to their fear. I chose to not let them win. I will not live in fear. I will not live in great sadness. I will live in the knowledge that there is hope and love in every corner of this great big world. I see it in my tiny corner every day.

I put the dish towel down and walk into my studio where my daughter is playing. She sees me and smiles.

“Me and Clover [her doll] are making snow angels on the floor for you, Momma!”

And just like that, I am reassured that yes, there is hope and love and goodness even in these difficult and trying times.

“They are beautiful angels, baby.”

“You happy, Momma?”

“Yes, baby, I am happy. I love you.”

“To the moon and back, right?”

“Right. To the moon and back.”

-Michelle

MORNINGS 04.22.2013

There was a time when mornings were about watching Small Wonder on the television while eating Honey Nut Cheerios with a little bit of sugar poured on top. I would watch the show, and with my spoon, scrape sugar clumps out of the milk, and press the granules into my bottom lip until they dissolved. Those mornings were about stacking my jelly bracelets, tightening my pigtails, mismatching my converse, and riding carpool with Alice and Jordan to my hippie school.

There was a time when mornings were about negotiating the different ways I spent my nights. Sometimes, I would stay up most of the night making home movies with my cousin Kristin where we’d write poetry and perform songs. Those were the nights I’d eat fried onions and ketchup while watching I Love Lucy with my Dad, and then I'd scrawl the names of my crushes all over his walls. Nights were the rule less, creative, underbelly. But, mornings were about being tired, putting on my big black hat, and waiting for my mom to pick me up and help me navigate the day.

There was a time when mornings were about my bedroom door opening and my mom asking me how she looked before she went to work. She'd brush her hair in my mirror and then ask me how I was doing. I was sleeping, so I didn’t know how I was doing yet, and I could barely open my eyes enough to know if her blazer matched her scarf, or if her pumps were too much for her job at the local courthouse. She always looked beautiful, even though this ritual baffled me.

There was a time when mornings were about savoring a snowstorm under a down comforter, and hiding from that double knock that meant it was time to shovel. I'd shovel our driveway, the stone path, and maybe a little bit of our elderly neighbor Jon’s driveway, if he wasn’t being too stubborn about doing it on his own.

There was a time when mornings were about that moment of shyly looking into the eyes of a boy I’d spent the entire night with in the dark, playfully and curiously, exploring each others bodies in a single sleeping bag.

There was a time when mornings were about journaling into my Dictaphone, in my purple sponge painted room, while looking up at the green and pink neon stars and moons above my bed.

Mornings now, are about swapping dreams and spoons with my husband. Mornings now, are about savoring; they are about deep intimacy and quiet. They are about finding the little spot of light suspended on the wooden beam of our ceiling, and guessing what time it is by its placement.  


Mornings now, are about that almost indecipherable moment when I wake up, where I don’t know who I am, who I’ve been, or who I want to be.

MORNINGS 03.21.2013

I’ve never been a morning person. Still, I have romanticized visions of waking early, stretching, and sipping coffee while I watch the city wake up around me. In these visions, the early-waking me is healthier, more active, and wildly productive.

When I lived in Pensacola, I was such an extreme night owl that I’d often be up to watch the sun rise. My neighbor, Aaron, and I would sit on our respective porches, writing, reading by dim porch light, and trading stories in hushed nighttime voices. Sometimes we’d walk to the bay and watch the water turn from murky black to a brilliant gold. Those mornings were my favorite.

Last month, a friend of mine said “If I didn’t have to sleep, I’d be happy to never do it again.” Sleeping, to him, is a waste of time; something that gets in the way of the projects, people, and fun that he can’t find enough time for. As I sank sleepily into his incredibly soft bed, I laughed and said “That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

 Projects, people, and fun are a waste of time; they are just things that get in the way of the sleep I can’t find enough time for.