MORNING RITUALS

Sun Rising by Martha Slavin

 Do you have rituals that you follow each day? 

As I turned the page on my calendar, I saw a quote suggesting that little things add up to big ideas. In other words, small rituals can accumulate to provide a foundation for our lives.

A friend works the New York Times mini crossword puzzle each day. I do too. It helps me wake up and shows me if my mind is either sluggish or sharp that morning. If it's Thursday, I also do the two Cryptogram puzzles published in the San Francisco Chronicle. I have a cup of tea and then a latte before I start doing morning chores. Bill opens the back door and stands quietly on the deck for a brief moment before he returns to his day.  Another friend gets up early and walks up to five miles around town. A neighbor for many years walked at sunrise, stopped and prayed to the sun. All small rituals.

Fountain of Ideas by Martha Slavin

Our dishwasher has been broken since Halloween (too many spooky events last year?). Though the repairman has apologized profusely because the first replacement part was broken and the second was the wrong one, the dishwasher still sits waiting to be fixed. In the meantime, Bill and I wash and dry dishes, a small task that gives us a few minutes together. Bill developed "dishpan hands" in reaction to the soap we use, so now I do the washing with gloves on and he dries. Standing together, putting dishes away, walking back and forth around each other, we do what I call the kitchen dance. Small things.

We both retreat to our workspaces where I bring up a blank document on my computer and start writing snippets for my blog that have been circling around in my head during the weekend. Sometimes one snippet (like this one) will continue to grow. Other times I may end up with several starters that I file away in my Blog Ideas file, which now numbers 153 separate idea morsels. Some, such as Out of Time, Compost, and Myths to Live By, make me stop and reconsider their concepts. Others stay in the Ideas file because they ran out of gas in one paragraph, or I read what I've written and realized my writing doesn't have the point that I want to express. When people ask me if I ever get stuck for an idea, I can explain about my Blog Idea file that gets me going. Small rituals.

This week as I sit at my computer, I start writing about the sight of a young bunny outside our kitchen window. I want to draw or paint him, so I set the story aside. I watch the morning dogwalkers parade past my window. Often they stop and talk to each other as their dogs sniff and jump at each other. There's a story there somewhere. Then I move to the idea of how water and shadows change the shape of objects, but my thoughts end quickly on that one. Then I turn to a collection of tin wind-up toys that I am drawing. All of these ideas end up in my file for later. I go outside and walk around our yard taking photos of the colors of January and find new growth on shrubs and trees that are just starting to unfold in our out-of-season warm weather. I tuck that idea away too.

The Sun, Light as a Feather by Martha Slavin

All these small rituals that begin my week add up. I recollect the phrase that made our son groan sometimes when we reminded him of the Three P's: Practice, Perseverance, and Persistence Pay Off. He las learned that lesson well. Small rituals.