I like to begin the day this way: let out the dogs—Ausin the gigantic wolfhound mix, and Gabby, the Golden mix. Make the coffee. Let in the dogs. Feed the cat, Lily, and the dogs. This is more complicated as it sounds, because in order to feed Lily I must place her bowl beneath my kitchen island to keep the dogs from it. If there’s one thing my dogs like, it’s cat food. Which, I know, I know, begs the question, but I fear if I feed them cat food they’ll start climbing the draperies and leaping up onto tables and flying through the house at breakneck speed in pursuit of a tin foil ball.
But anyway. After animal care, I pour a cup of fresh, hot coffee (honestly, is there much more divine in this world? Maybe the Sistine Chapel. Maybe.) I sit on the sofa with my cup of coffee and a volume of poetry and I tell myself I can only read one poem which works about as well as when I tell myself I can only have one piece of See’s candy.
After I read poetry, I do my version of meditation, which is sitting very still and staring out the window at the sky and the trees and eschewing my anxieties and my to-do list in favor of creating a pocket of peace. If I just sit still, it always comes. And it makes the day start right.
So why don’t I do it every day? Oh, I don’t know. I really don’t. There is no excuse. There is no reason, except for the sometime contrariness of human nature. But I sat on the sofa today with my poem and my coffee and my silence, and it turned what started as a wobbly day into something lovely. In complete honestly, I will admit that the silence was broken one (1) time, when Lily leaped up on a table and almost knocked a lamp over and I had to speak with her. (Lily: you mean YELL at me. Me: You don’t have to share that with everyone. Lily: Any more than you need to share my occasional transgressions. Me: OCCASIONAL??)
There are a few other things I wish I would remember to do more often, but this post is long enough. I wish you a good coffee and a peaceful start to YOUR day.
Lovely!
Yay! Thank you.