I start this morning the same way I’ve started every morning for a few weeks now. I rise, toss a robe over my nightgown, punch on the coffee maker, and step out my patio door. No dog, no husband, no phone to text, just me. I don’t go anywhere. I just take a bath in the morning air and breathe.
I take my cue, step back, and begin to absorb the rest of what the morning has to offer. Above me, a three-quarter moon shines as though it doesn’t realize the night is over. The sun has not yet crested the hill behind me, delayed by the dark mandate of bi-yearly time change, a remnant of our agrarian society that we can’t shake.
I still grapple with the reflex to do everything too quickly. This is one of the things that has led me to these early morning sessions with the coffeemaker burbles, the silent, over-tall trees of the house below ours, and a marine layer that sits out on the horizon like the distant mountain range.
My knee replacement rehab is now complete. As I’ve gotten better, I’ve done less reading, more writing, more exercise in the past month. My body, which turns out to be both task master and teacher, lets me know when I must stop. When the writing is going well, which it is right now, I feel as though I’m racing to get where I want to go in my story before my new knees resent their long-bent posture and ache.
I’m thinking a lot these days about how constraints can feed creativity. How the ability to notice what is before me can slow time, give me time to breathe a little deeper, and find ways to live a little larger in the space that has been given to me.
In short, I’m more apt to go with the flow.
I’m grateful to be writing again. Lights, action, camera! Nouns put things on the stage. Adjectives control the lighting, moisture, odor, silhouette, and state of consciousness. Verbs are the director; adverbs shape his/her pace.
I embrace this slow pace of life, limitations and all. I’m still me, with replacement parts. I’m still a writer.
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