Cold feet. Warm hands.
7 AM. I mosey out of bed. I slip on long baggy sweatpants and start my sleepy shuffle down the hall. Toes say good morning to the fibers of the carpet, the slick of the hardwood, then the cool of the kitchen tile.
I take the drip coffee carafe, and the hot plate beneath its glass sizzles and hisses like a snake I’ve snuck up behind. I fill my mug to the brim with a dark, awful, hot, and nearly flavorless liquid and make my way out the sliding glass door.
The morning chill wraps around me like a hug, its embrace gently inquiring how I slept.
I make my way off the deck-laid porch to the garden below. Barefoot, blades of grass in between stones and weeds and dirt tickle me with every step. Placing my feet carefully, I brace myself for pinches and pokes from thorns or thistles. But the risk of pain makes me feel all the more alive.
The sun’s rays play in dawn’s shadows and take their time boiling to life. Diffused light encases the garden to slowly wake up the day with gentle back scratches as whispers of last night’s oddball dreams dissolve into thin air.
When my legs ask for a rest, I find a spot. I sit down. I perch my warm mug cupped in between my hands on folded knees.
I watch the life around me buzz awake—birds foraging for nesting materials, squirrels up to no good, ants clocked in and marching their assigned routes, plants drinking in their breakfasts of morning sun.
Closing my eyes, I sigh. I’m dumbfounded something as simple as waking up and walking outside is a puzzle piece that clicks into place inside me without fail. As soon as my sigh finishes escaping from my body, I grip tighter to my coffee cup.
In this small space, I feel both content and longing simultaneously, and this paradox sits behind me, rests its chin on my shoulder, and wraps me in its arms. It’s something I can feel but can’t see or make sense of. All I can detect is that I am both unbelievably grateful I woke up, I’m alive, and the world is unfairly gorgeous while also yearning for mornings when all that’s unsolved and unanswered in my life has found its peace.
I sit with this complex acknowledgment of gratitude and unmet need. Nowhere else in my day do these two emotions blend so vibrantly.
I am deeply in love with the morning.