When not awakened by the alarm, when no requirement to rush out into the kitchen, when no schedule slips into my morning brain as the eyes open, when I lay unmoving in my bed even for a few minutes – before hunger, before pain begins, before worries – I am aware of the light in the morning.
It hovers on hardwoods in the back of the yard, reflects off large, glossy leaves of an old magnolia, is absorbed into the bark of a fallen oak from the last storm, and the murky scattering of pine needles covering the ground, muddy from the recent rains.
A single yellow leaf falls, from somewhere I cannot see. The house is silent, and I miss the sound of the dog’s nails tapping on the floor outside my room. Impatiently. Not because she needs to go out, but because she wants to come in, for company.
Seeing
When I turn away from the clock, and take a moment to lay in bed and see, there is art on my walls that I love, each framed image an object of beauty and a story. My kind of beauty – provocative, questioning, never the same look in the eye as each form or color returns my gaze. 
But there are many mornings without five minutes or ten minutes to rise in this human way, this sensory way, this fundamentally necessary way. No light beyond my window. In its place, darkness, rain, heaviness in my limbs, a pounding head, eyes burning from insufficient sleep and all the tasks and concerns of the day sweeping in as I force myself out of bed and begin. Do. Churn. Rush.
Numbers
When we are confronted with disasters and presented with statistics – large numbers – thousands, tens of thousands, millions – we are stunned. We cannot process these numbers. Five years ago on December 26 the Indian Ocean Tsunami took more than 200,000 lives in 11 countries. That news seems far away, implausible, faceless. Large numbers overwhelm us. They are too big to comprehend. Five years ago in December I was mourning the loss of my mother; it remains complex and strangely, still too big to comprehend.
Does anyone in this country remember the tsunami, the shock of it during holiday time especially? The death of one or two is more tangible; we can imagine faces, family members, children left without their parents. Large numbers are impressive; but small numbers humanize.
Perspective
Yesterday, Brittany Murphy, only 32 years old, died unexpectedly. She was a young actress many of us recognized. In the death of one, we feel the loss in a more present way, and other losses reverberate for each of us. More tragic, the loss when one is young, and 32 is very young.
I remember that age; my life was about work and travel, strength and independence, loneliness and freedom. More certainties than I have now, more doubts than I have now, more time to contemplate both. It was a period before the complications and grace of bearing children, before the fear that is born alongside each new life entrusted to our care.
This day
When we open our eyes we see what we must, and we see what we choose. This morning I will linger on the loveliness of pen and ink, of charcoal and pencil, of paint and canvas. I will glance at the stacks of books and overlook the clothing to hang up, the piles of papers, the other messes. For a few minutes, I will focus on the light in the morning.
Tasks remain. There are always tasks: a place to be cleared in the den for a small tree, fresh greenery to be cut from the yard and placed on the mantel, gifts to be wrapped for the boys – just a few.
There is baking as a thank you to several people who have been kind, there are errands for my son, and a phone call later to my elder son, then more tasks to fill the waiting until he is home – tomorrow night.
It is a busy time and stopping isn’t an option. But slowing, for a few moments, is. For all of us.
© D A Wolf
Reminding myself to take a little breather today. Maybe with tea and a cookie. Thanks for the little jolt of reality.
So sad about Brittany Murphy… I love taking time to see the light in the morning and not rushing… beautiful post.
I just rushed in from errands, from shopping, from the post office… rushed, impatient, not finding enough hours in the day. And I made the choice to slow… to sit and read you… and I am so glad I did.
Yes I remember and it was toward the end of my time with illicit drugs. I lost one of my uncles in 1999. His wife has remarried and things have not been the same. My grandparents passed away. One in 2004 and the other during the early nineties. They both did not come to America with us. They stayed behind in Cambodia. Maybe because they were repatriated from the refugee camps on the border of Cambodia and Thailand; I’m not sure. The last time I saw them was before I came here (came here in 1987). The last time I heard their voices over the phone was during the early nineties. My country of Cambodia has not recovered from what happened almost thirty-four years ago.
Other people such as my friend’s little brother passed away too. I dunno. Things are just retarded right now.
Today, I take on the responsibilities of housekeeping and getting myself to and from college via public transportation and at times, a ride from friends. I have had five years to set my biological clock back to its natural rhythm of before dawn and after dusk. I think I have been doing ok with that. I may be able to function properly, but I will never recover fully because recovery from meth is lifelong.
Slowing is beyond necessary this time of year! Otherwise, what’s it all for?
Lovely post on this the Winter Solstice. I arose in the early dark today to go to the doctor, it was crowded and, despite getting my number at 7:30am, I felt frustrated that I was still waiting at nearly 9am, and that I would have to miss yoga… until, finally in the blood-drawing chair, I glanced across at a young girl in a wheelchair with leg braces and a smile so sweet and full of life that I felt abashed for my former frustration, knowing full well that my blood test was for nothing serious.
Thanks, BLW, for noticing the light. Best Holiday Wishes to you and your family too.
You’re so right. The loss of a few people is sometimes much more emotionally relevant to us than the loss of perhaps tens or hundreds of thousands. Christmas is becoming, for me, a time to try to slow down and look up from a year’s worth of wasted time. It should be every day that I look at my boys and my life in amazement for my good luck. Instead I reserve it for a few days a year and spend the rest of the time toiling uselessly. Brittany Murphy is a tragedy, but to be honest, I didn’t know who she was. I guess I don’t pay attention too much 🙂
Thanks for this reminder to be present in the season of presents.
I am embarrassed to admit that I hardly think at all about the victims of the tsunami; my thoughts of the thousands of people still displaced and terrorized in Darfur are far less constant than they were years ago when that particular tragedy was much more in the news. I suppose you’re right: we so often need a face to personalize a story. And so, somehow, we can rationalize an interest in a dead Hollywood starlet and little thought for scores of the nameless and distant.
We are bombarded by so much through the media – so much bad news, and constantly. In our everyday lives, many of us move at a frantic pace, with too much on our “daily plate of crazy.” It’s all we can do to manage our families, our jobs, our households – and mothers, especially, feel either overwhelmed (though still performing better than we realize), or inadequate in the quality of nurturing, producing, and even “being present” that we provide.
We also seek to please, and often, ourselves last. We hold impossible expectations to be everything to everyone; we still wish to be a self, we still wish to give back to others. So we are bombarded from the outside, and we set the bar so high from the inside that we are self-critical rather than self-reasonable.
It’s natural with all this that we forget what is far away. And large numbers are indeed faceless. Behind every catastrophe are mothers and fathers, children. Behind every downsizing are families that live in some measure of fear or despair. Even in reminding ourselves to be present, at times it seems like “one more thing we should do” rather than something we deserve, and something that will strengthen us. So a face, a name, a person we identify with in any way brings us back to essentials. Caring for each other, one person at a time. Appreciating a blue sky on a cold day in December. Reading words that make us laugh, or soothe. Perhaps writing those words now and then.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. (I may write about why.) But I do think we could all – especially the women – cut ourselves a break. We would mend the world if we could. But the world is made up of individuals. Let’s mend where we can, and maybe add one more – a self. And in that, in the light of that, we’ll have greater capacity to give back of ourselves to whomever we choose, and as many as we can.
Sure. I tend to relate better with nonamerican born cambodians than american born Cambodians. I would like to go back to Cambodia and work there one day, but that is too far ahead. So I’ll put that away for now.