It is 6:36AM, and the air circulating through my apartment is brisk. The cold air hangs in the silence. Joseph is laying on his play mat and rubbing his eyes, a classic sign that nap time is arriving. I hoist him up off the floor, which requires a deep bend down and a big lift up that never ceases to be straining for my back. I walk around in circles for a few minutes with him, softly kissing his chipmunk cheeks. Talk about a nutritious breakfast. His eyelids are being pulled down by gravity, he can’t stay awake. I place him gingerly into his stroller bassinet, where he takes most of his daytime naps. I cover him with my favorite blanket, an organic cotton one that was gifted to Reva when she was born. It is highly imperfect after years of wear and tear, but still a perfectly good shield for warmth that makes Joseph look like a melted Jet-Puff marshmallow taking a slumber.
He was up at 5:41AM this morning, and at 5:41AM yesterday morning, and the one before that too. I don’t have the chutzpah to complain though, since he fell asleep at 8PM and slept through the night. No, it’s not magic. Yes, we did the thing that causes the internet to seize and criticize you or cancel you or compliment you, depending on what algorithm you are clicked into. We *whispers* sleep trained him. Now there is a piece of information that will surely come as breaking news to my mother and my mother in-law, whom I’ve spared the details.
I know some will shudder of the thought at letting their baby cry. But others will wince at the sight of a 2-year old being breastfed. Parenting is personal. In parenting, and in life, it’s (sometimes) better to make your decision and move forward with it before someone can tell you otherwise. So we did it, and here we are, up at 5:41AM.
After nine deep hours of sleep, Joseph and I wake in the inky morning light and begin anew. Although I too, might like to go back to sleep just 55 minutes after I wake. I too, might like someone to scoop me up off the couch, set me down in my bassinet and cover me in a blanket, just so. Close the sun shade and walk away. Strange, my invite must have gotten lost in the mail.
For the last year plus, I have absorbed sleep like a Cretian sponge, constantly pocketing those extra minutes found like spare pennies between the couch cushions. During pregnancy, I went to bed early and woke up late, my stream of sleep constantly interrupted by a bladder the size of a jelly bean. And in the early days postpartum, I regularly slept until eight or nine or ten in the morning after being up all night nursing. Usually I awoke to the sound of Reva clapping around the apartment or forcibly prying open my pocket door. I gained bits of fragmented sleep but I lost the cathedral of time that is 5:41AM.
These mornings are the rare clear sky and calm sea in a house with small children. They are magic, despite the drooping eyelids. Yes, I am so tired by 9AM, but where else can I find hours of tranquility in this otherwise chaotic state of life? When else can I fill my steaming morning mug and sip it with such intention? When else can I clack away at the keyboard, my thoughts coagulating in sync with the caffeine hitting my bloodstream?
It is often tempting to fill this special time with the gaggle of chores that accumulate on my plate every day and every night. The wonderful and non-wonderful thing about the chore list is that no dent or time devoted to it affects its’ stature. It is always there, waiting for me, calling to me. It stands tall, like a stack of golden, regenerative, silver-dollar pancakes. Take one, and the fry cook flips another in its' place, mere seconds later. Despite the temptation to get sucked into the vacuum of nothingness that is housework, I resist.
Five or ten or twenty years from now, there is no way that I will remember or cherish the aforementioned tower of tasks. I won’t be happy that I satisfied myself with the bare minimum. I won’t be happy that I satiated my appetite for life by crossing line items off a to-do list. That I traded my precious quiet time to buy my daughter more bows on Amazon, or to put away the laundry, or to wash the dishes for the 1,017th time this week.
This choice, perhaps not terribly unlike like sleep training, isn’t easy for me and takes constant redirection towards the end goal. I herd my thoughts, like fat, fluffy New Zealand sheep, in the direction I want to go. Who do I want to move towards becoming today? Where am I en route to, spiritually, emotionally, physically? Recently. My mother sent me a video that showcased a Holocaust survivor talking about how people need very clear goals for themselves. And then once they achieve that goal, they need another, and then another. With a goal, or better stated, with a purpose, the soul sings and soars, no matter the circumstances. Viktor Frankl famously brought this concept to life in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning:
Life asks you the meaning of life by questioning you; you don’t ask life. It’s not what you expect from life, but what life expects from you.
Maybe you’re thinking to yourself “Well, she must not care about having a clean house then.” Or “Well, she must be fine having her dishes pile up just like her pancakes.” But I assure you, no. I am a person who feels the dust under the skin of my nails when it sits on the ledge of my photo frames. I am a person whose brain feels cluttered when my house is littered with tiny socks and cardboard boxes. But despite that, mornings, these very special mornings, must be safeguarded for my self-enrichment, for my self-actualization, for my self-preservation. Mornings, my mornings are for becoming all of the people who I want to be, if only while the sun cracks the surface of the sky with her glimmer.
If only in the cold, dark, stillness. If only for an hour, I get to be being a thinker, a writer, a philosopher, a meditator. I get to read a poem, or stare out the kitchen window, or talk to God for a nice long while. Mornings are for mulling on the dreams I would fulfill if I had the time and for bathing in the mental warmth those thoughts bring me. In the stillness, the scroll that sits curled in my brain unfurls, and the ideas run rampant.
Good morning.
This is absolutely beautiful! So eloquently put.