Waking Up

I awake in the early morning hours and lie in bed just those few extra moments.  My mind teeters between dream and reality as I listen to the raindrops and wind outside my window and and begin to wonder if I should ponder beginning a new day.  I stretch my body, arching my back in a yoga cat's pose while lying on my side, feeling muscles relaxed from the night's slumber--released from the clenching that happens with the running of the day.  Just a few more minutes, I think to myself.  I lie prone in bed, relaxed and in some ways the most me, free from the complexities of the days activities that make up the list of who I am.  My morning face, with sleepy eyes is not yet hindered by the mask of make-up that prepares me to meet my day.  Just a few more minutes, I think to myself.

My writerly life is much like those early morning moments when I choose to languish in bed for just those few extra moments.  It is during those moments that the clarity of words happen--even when I think I am in a dream state and I think nothing is there for the offering.  With the stretch of putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, as the case may be) I create the space for words to flow.  For my ideas to take root.  For imagination to develop.  I yoga into a position where the relaxed muscle of my mind allows words to emerge.  I come to the writing space without the masks and words create a reality.  Just a few minutes...just a few...and the writing emerges.  

During many mornings, my morning routine is much different than one of languishing.  The alarm rings and my eyes open with a startle--mind already thinking of what needs to be done.  I jump in the shower, throw on cloths and make-up and rush out the door, grabbing a lunch made the night before and a coat out of the closet as I sprint to the car to begin the rush of the day.  Grabbing coffee in the nearest DD's drive-through, my day begins. 

And so it is with my writing.  Often the day fills and my words aren't written.  Often my day fills and words aren't thought.  Often my words dissipate with the rush of the drive-through coffee.

This March, for my third year,  I am choosing to languish in my words.  I am choosing the early, slow wake-up, so that I can capture those moments that slip by with the running.   The wake up that develops a writerly life.  I am choosing to create a space for my words.  Slow.  Languishing.  Even on those days I am rushing to get my DD coffee.

Thank you to the blog, Two Writing Teachers, for your promotion of the March Writers' Challenge.  Thank you for giving us a forum for writing and responding to other writers.