MORNING ROUTINE

I have spent a year honing my morning routine in order to unclutter my mind and access creativity.  This writing is a good example of what the process has become.  Keys to success I have discovered, are simple but not always easy to do day after day.

1- Wake up early.  Particularly if you have a family or many responsibilities, carving out your own time is fundamental.  Artists are often considered selfish with their time and if you can't move things around during the day then you have only the beginning and the end of the day to work with.  With my lifestyle, morning is the only real time I can claim without cutting into someone else's.

2- Radio silence.  No tunes, no news, no screens.  Absolutely no social media.  The last thing that happened was literally a dream and the next thing will be real life.  This is a moment out of time, after the surreal and before the real.  The sounds of your home are more than enough stimulus. 

3- Jot down any remnant from your dreams.  often, if you can find even one part, one little nugget, writing it down will bring more detail.  It's a great way to start because you don't need to find a starting point for this kind of writing and it can help roll-start the pen.

4- If you have anything on your mind from the previous day, get it down on paper and be done with it.  This could be the bulk of your morning writing or just a quick expulsion of whatever is preventing free-flow of thought.

5- Writing, like knitting or any other repetitive task is meditative.  No matter what you write, after 3 pages of it your mind tends to go to a relaxed state and eases the constant thinking that keeps us from being inside a moment.

6- At any point, when you feel ready and relaxed, make a mark on the page that signifies creative writing is about to happen.  I make 3 dash marks like = with an extra dash.  Start a sentence and keep going.  Dare yourself move past each word without dwelling too much on the destination.  You'll be surprised what has been hidden, waiting for this moment to get out.  

7- Do these things as often as you can.  Life is busy but you are important.  The goal is every single day.  it may not be a realistic goal, but who said art was for the realistic.  Do what you can. 

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Thursday

11-9-17

.....Tea is ready.....Coffee is started.....

.....Dream..... Messy and crazy and angry, accusing.  I went to put chicken parts into a deep fryer but at least three full sized turkeys were in the mix.  As I thought about what to do, they cooked.  I forgot about them briefly and they cooked.  In trying to pull them out awkwardly, grease got all over my leather coat.  I made popcorn in an avocado-shaped container in the fryer.  It only partially popped and was also messy and oily.  Lisa walked through the room with a tray of something and spilled it on me and the couch.  I got angry and she got dismissive.  After a long argument of me getting angry and burned and she being 'whatever-y' I called her a dipshit.  Suddenly she was no longer dismissive.  Then blah, blah, dream stuff

It is Thursday and I got up at 6:10.  Not bad.  I have just heard the front door open and a sleep-walking Adam letting the cat into the house to officially usher in the morning.  Adam shuffled back to his room to resume sleep.  Soon Penny will lazily descend from Molly's bed and trek down the stairs to paw at her water bowl.

In 45 minutes Molly's alarm will sound.  5 minutes later she will clop, clop down and into my view.  Today I will make her hug me and tell her I love her because I don't do that enough and that sort of thing begins to feel foreign if not practiced.  I will lose her to life eventually, but not today.  Not when I have to drive to Burien at 6:50 this evening to pick her up from soccer.

Lisa and Adam will both get up around the same time.  Adam will probably have to be woken up.  he will pull the covers over himself and groan.  

And so the house will be alive and moving and breathing and possibly complaining about this thing or that.  But now it is only the sound of the fridge motoring cool air and my hand sliding across the paper as I write.  A tiny sound of the pen rolling out words on paper and there is a little creak from the table and its one unstable leg.

This moment of meditation allows bird, or mechanical chirps to find me calmly writing.  My mind is outside this house, spreading toward the mountains and the Sound, thinning and stretching.  I am at all times equidistant from this wooden table and this still sleeping house.  Dots of light appear one by one as someone decides, or is forced to rise for the day.  Sounds will rise in their own houses and their own minds.  They will prepare, clean, adorn, care for and move into this day with enthusiasm or trepidation or some balance between the two.  

Cycles will repeat, similar but with infinite variation.  My mind is spread thin and wide.  it hears the ignition of cars and trucks.  Arguments of children not understanding why anything so cruel as school must happen at such an unreasonable hour.

And now coffee is done and my mind retracts slowly from the neighboring countryside.  The people have begun their days, or have not yet realized their potential.  They will go about their lives in similar, but infinitely variable ways.  They may fail to realize that they are among several things that fit the description of Patterned But Variable.  Other such things are fire, waves,  babbling creeks, wind through trees or grasses and, sadly, television.  They all share a common trait.  They are so easy to stare at for long periods of time.  Calming and soothing.  From the right perspective it would be nice to watch people do what they do individually, not intending to be part of any pattern, but, as a whole of humanity, showing similarities and variation like wind through grass.  No one moment exactly the same as another but so many moments so very similar to so many others that it seems unimaginable that nothing connects them.  That these movings-about have no greater plan nor any central organizer in common.  That as individual as I might try to be, I am always going to fill in some space that requires me in order for the pattern to be complete  No, Doesn't require "ME", requires someone, anyone.

My mind returns to the inside of the house.  The cat is testing my awareness and has quietly stepped on the table.  In the duration of the previous sentence he was able to walk all the way across the table before I could dot punctuation and shoo him off.  Clever guy!

Today is a quick three pages and on with it.  I hope for happiness and connection.  I search for some good thing to arise from writing.  Some opportunity.

Adam has surprised me by waking up first.  Clever guy!

= 

Kyle stared into the patterned randomness of it, as a female voice spoke to something inside him, someone inside him.  The patterned randomness also spoke to something inside him, something inside everyone.  The cream fought the coffee for as long as it could, swirling, collecting, creating white nebulae in the vast black universe of the cup.  The struggle was beautiful and unpredictable.  Compromise was only a matter of time and the show was over.  The end result of the universe and nebulae was medium brown and delicious looking. 

The voice from somewhere toned on pleasantly but with intentional emotionless.  "Today's high, 42 degrees with general atmosphere and visibility of less than twenty feet.  Winds 0-2 miles per hour, changing around 5pm when a very small amount of the Sun's diffused light may be visible for those with west-facing windows.  Otherwise, dark.  Rain possible but unlikely.

With a touch to its side, the cup of coffee became instantly steaming.  Kyle sipped and winced and smiled at once, taking in the hot beverage that stung but also reminded him of the true luxuries of life.  A nice hot cup of coffee to warm the bones and remind one's self that "one's self" was, indeed, alive.  It was good to be alive, even if Kyle had to burn his tongue by forcing too much scalding coffee into his mouth to prove it.

Kyle looked to the clock, flipping through tiny moments, lolling slowly through the long ones.  7:00:01..:02..:03.... He went to the kitchen window and peered through the grey.  He could see Janine smiling back, her hand touching the glass, motioning as if a slight wave.  her mouth moved a 'Hello, Kyle" as her audio was fed into his kitchen.  

"Hello, Janine.  How did you sleep?"

She smiled again and thought for a moment.  "I dreamed a lot.  In one dream I was standing in something soft and warm.  I think it was sand, but I could not see it.  It felt so nice.  I would like to stand in sand some day.  Do you think silly to hope for, Kyle?"

It seems unlikely, Janine.  But anything's possible.  What did it feel like?"

This time her smile came across the short, grey distance between the windows in high, full, blushing color.  "It felt good!  Really good!  Orgasm good!  The warmness squeezed up between my toes and surrounded my heal like a sudden wet foot massage.  But in a real foot massage, you tell the machine to focus on one spot or another.  This was cozy and warm and all-at-once.

Kyle, I know it's early but do you think you'd like to....?"  She smiled, personally and inquisitively.

"Yeah, I'd like that a lot!"

Kyle went to his bedroom door, turned knob and creaked open the old door.  There on his bed lay Janine, leaning naked and beautiful for all her years.  She was grinning secretively and her mouth opened but only the sound of static could be heard.  I need to have a repair delivered, the thought entered and left his mind in the same tiny moment.  he pulled off his clothes and crawled onto the bed.  Their bodies were so close!  Then, she leaned into him and her holographic warmth enveloped him.  Nerves tingled and thought vanished.

Kyle and Janine made love for several minutes and then she wept.  He could not hear her due to the broken sound patch of the hologram, but she wept silently nonetheless.  She caressed his youthful cheek as tears fell mildly down hers.  her chest clenched, holding back violent sobs for a few moments.  Then, as usual, she swallowed hard, pressed her face back into a smile and sweetly waved him out of the bedroom.

Kyle showered, dressed and returned to his kitchen to get some breakfast.  A few minutes later Janine appeared in the window across the haze, smiling and doing dishes.  Her voice came through the home-speakers, lively and inquisitive.  "Kyle, have you ever been to the beach?  I was thinking about my dream and wondered if you remember walking in sand.  I mean, before?"

"Nah, I was too young.  I really don't remember anything specific from before."

Janine took a long moment before speaking.  The haze between the houses formed a filter, blurring her edges.  Making her age more of a range than a specificity.  Kyle guessed between 35 and 45.  The haze made it impossible to tell if there was any gray mixed in with her lovely blonde hair.  It disguised smile lines and other marks of age.  He felt his words had hurt her but the haze allowed no clues to pass between windows.  

After the long moment, Janine cocked her head and said, "Well, I'm going to watch some movies and then talk to Ben for a while.  Say hi to Carey for me.  See you tonight."

Kyle bid her goodbye and sat hard in his chair.  He breathed a few short breaths and made a stiff line of his mouth.  He looked down into the coffee cup.  The coffee and cream had reached stasis, forever.  No going back.  The universe reaching its final form and staying that way.  

He dipped his finger into the cup and felt the liquid burn just enough to prove that he was alive.  It was good to be alive, even of you had to experience pain to prove it.