Good morning everyone and welcome to Friday’s Morning Open Thread.
Morning Open Thread is a daily, copyrighted post from a host of editors and guest writers. We support our community, invite and share ideas, and encourage thoughtful, respectful dialogue in an open forum.
I’ve come to think of this post as one where you come for the music and stay for the conversation—so feel free to drop a note. The diarist gets to sleep in if she so desires and can show up long after the post is published. So you know, it's a feature, not a bug.
Join us, please.
Unless the weather is unbearable, I start my Friday mornings off on my patio with a cup of coffee and a modicum of peace and quiet—save for the occasional stray cat testing the edges of that bubble by exploring for food and the incessant white-noise hum of the low-pressure sodium-vapor lamps that work as street lights in my neighborhood and cast an unnatural ochre-hued cone over a miserly reach of neglected road. There (with a thread of sleepiness still tangled to my mind and a dulled imagination) I can feel isolated from the reaches of the world, the news, the stressors, the obligations and burdens that reveal themselves in the dregs of coffee grounds at the bottom of my cup. But a half hour or so is most times plenty to steel me for the day: my own Sisyphean moment to smile before turning my attention to the task.
As a child those moments were shorter and spent under covers hoping for a few more minutes before having to place bare feet on cold floors. In college it was a time before the campus woke when I could put needle on album and listen to the hushed tones of music while sitting in my dorm window, staring out at near total darkness, smoking a cigarette, and trying desperately to remember what day it was and what class I needed to attend. Later, in apartments and rental houses, the mornings were met with expectation. A new-ish job, the start of a quarterly project, cases to be prepared and seen through, a time when being awake meant movement and thought. Still later, mornings were secret and precious moments before my son woke and needed attention; and still later, times of bitter soliloquies about old wounds and fresh scars that could be studied and analysed and used to build mountains of resentment and regret.
It has taken me a life-time to appreciate the folly of focusing only on the future (near and distant) and accepting the utter uselessness of manufactured resentment and unmoored regret. For me at least, it’s taken most of a lifetime to learn to appreciate that miserly reach of the distant streetlight and ignore the incessant low hum of sodium, neon, and argon dancing an electric jig. I’ve given up on regret as a pastime and even devalued these early-morning moments as less found gems as earned currency. I have come to understand that, for me, how the day is met is a conscious decision and one that—with a bit of concentration and understanding—can welcome the first stirrings of light like the slow reveal of a beautifully-wrought painting by a master. There are still times when I have to deal with my inherited history of depression and no amount of positive thinking can scatter the darkness, but those times are becoming rarer. But on most days I can appreciate my limitations and take some comfort in realizing that my peace of mind is better for being earned.
❧
Be well, be kind, and appreciate the love you have in your life.
❧
❧
☕️
Grab your coffee or tea and join us, please.
What's on your mind this morning?