My Morning Routine

I want to start each day proud of myself, because many days I go to bed in disappointment. I’ve eaten shit food. I’ve had some high-calorie drinks. I didn’t work out today. I didn’t finish my checklist. But when I wake, I am fresh and clear and the hope of the day is upon me.

To be fair, I am a childless writer, so my mornings are often mine. I know this is not many people’s experience. But one of my dearest friends is a mother, and she wakes up an hour early to read her book under her blanket with a book light.. almost every morning. She reads twenty five books a year. It’s extraordinary. And when I ask her what her favorite part of the day was, she often says that stolen hour.

I first make my pour over coffee. I heat the kettle to 209 degrees and grind the light roast beans and warm my carafe with hot water. I listen to no music and my arms move on autopilot. The clicks and clacks of my autonomous work soothes me as I boot up.

With my coffee, I sit down in my kitchen window and open three books of poetry. I want to ready three poems before anything else. One by Mary Oliver. One by Galway Kinnell. And one by Jim Harrison. This takes only 10-20 minutes. But the simple act of consuming poetry on paper does something to my brain. It starts my day with something real. Something printed decades ago. Something written and born into existence that has lasted (as opposed to a clickbait headline on a screen that will be gone in hours). A thing someone made to send a true feeling into the world, into the future, and into me.

It starts me with possibility. I too can do this. I too can make things.

Often, after reading just a few poems, I feel electrified to write. The creative intentional act of poetry, as opposed to addictive news and internet chatter, is born of the higher virtues. Of love rather than fear. Of life rather than death. Of planting seeds rather than salting the soil.

If you don’t like poetry, start your day with a chapter of fiction. Or ‘A Year With Thomas Merton.’ Or a year with the stoics. There are all kinds of daily books designed to plant your mind in good thinking before you dive into the storm of the day.

I want to include my Mary Oliver poem today because it really touched me (below). It’s about the death of her beloved dog. I’ve always believed dogs to be one of our best teachers. They are uncomplicated love. A caricature of love. They live 15 years. Think about how perfect that is. If you get your kid a dog, it will die just as your kid becomes a young adult. Just when they think death is a myth and they are invincible, they will learn grief and loss and how that is a necessary piece of love. It’s as if they were designed to teach us the broad strokes of life: curiosity, joy, love, care, loyalty, and impermanence.

Ok my shakers, love you,

Jed.

Her Grave
by Mary Oliver

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile-----
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her
cunning elbows,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.
We did not think of music,
but, anyway, it began to rain
slowly.

Her wolfish, invitational, half-pounce.

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something.

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if you’re lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her long slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?

She roved ahead of me through the fields, yet would come back, or
wait for me, or be somewhere.

Now she is buried under the pines.

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and
not to be angry.

Through the trees is the sound of the wind, palavering

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste
of the infallible energies?

How strong was her dark body!

How apt is her grave place.

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

Finally,
the slick mountains of love break
over us.