Waking Up

Waking up: Remembering edges of landscapes.

I have a few stray thoughts first thing in the morning as I’m waking up..

Last night, I was restless, wading through the long hours before sleep came. But this morning I turned to Yoyo Ma, enjoying the ethereal voice of Bobby McFerrin with Yoyo Ma. Just right for a few deep breaths to start the day. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GczSTQ2nv94 and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gew_Hsp2vsM ).

It takes me back decades ago. I was about four, sitting on the porch of a simple house in the desert, looking out at the sand and sagebrush valley below the Mojave mountains. It was quiet an hour before everyone in the house was up. A simple morning. The sun. A few clouds trailing across the ridges of the mountains. a quiet neighborhood. The wooden porch where I sit, still cool from the high desert night--before the sun seared the street, the sidewalk to the house, the very porch where I perched, this is what I remember.

A few beetles found their way in the sand beside the house amid the sidewinder's late-night trails. My toes were cold as were the edges of my arms that I could not reach as I huddled into myself. It was still with a few birds' songs passing by. My mind rested in that cool quiet hour.

I sat there for the longest time until the house, the neighborhood woke up and began the day.

Life appeared simple to my four-year-old perceptions. And amid the COVID crisis we face today, I reach back to that moment to ground myself in what matters in these early hours: simple moments in the cool quiet before the sun comes up, a beetle finding its way along the step, my dad passing me on his way out to work, saying, you'd better go in and get dressed.

Time to get up.