The Life and Times of the Plume

I’ll miss mornings like these at the LCITW.  I wouldn’t call myself an early bird, but I am very much a morning person.  I rather like everything about morning but especially like the light.  The light looks just like I feel — slow, stretching, rising, reaching, yawning, tea brewing, daydreaming morning light.  Beautiful.  It’s like being with a good old friend, easy and bright…which is a magical thing to think about — being friends with a distant star that regularly supplies my mornings with ancient light.  It’s the little cosmic things that make all the difference…

Robert is an early bird.  He hops right out of bed with bright, beady eyes and gets to it.  It’s almost disturbing to witness the tiny violence of him leaping into day the way he does.  He really grabs morning in his teeth and gives it a shake.  I like to wake up, lay about in the warmth of my sleep coccoon daydreaming and drowsing before I finally get up, wander down the ladder to the main floor in the cabin and begin my morning ablutions.  I quit drinking coffee.  Did I tell you that?  I quit early on in the summer.  I woke up one morning and opined aloud, “I think this junk hurts my stomach.”  That morning, I had herbal tea instead, and then the next day too, and so on and so forth until I was an official non-coffee-drinker.  It wasn’t hard.  It feels good.  My stomach feels much better, all the time.  On a whim, I made myself a cup a few weeks ago, just to see what would happen to me if I reintroduced it to my purified system.  I spent most of the day twitching and stuttering, my limbs were herky jerky, my mind was racing.  It was awful.

Anyway, now that I am exclusively a tea drinker, I brew my tea (today it is double bergamot earl grey decaf) and usually go for a walk in the woods with my cup in hand (out to the tabernacle) or I settle down on the loveseat here and write for a while.  Sometimes I write for me, other times I pen letters to far away friends.  The dogs come in and out, checking in on me, waggling and wiggling and smiling.  Farley puts his head on my lap and asks for a ear rub.  Tater Tot bites my pen.  They like the morning too.  Penelope usually hops up with me and curls herself around my feet which is a soft and warm sensory experience.  I have been known to say that I keep a weenie dog simply as a foot warming apparatus.  But don’t worry, I am sweet on her beyond this appointed capacity of hers.  Unless she’s being bad.  When she is bad, she’s terribly bad.  And the cat?  Rhubarb is usually passed out somewhere after a night of hunting in the wilds here.  He brought home a rabbit two weeks ago.  Unbelievable, right?  It was sad, but only natural.

My mornings dawdle, draw themselves towards noon — creeping, leaping, shimmying and sashaying.  After my first cup of tea, I have a second.  I make something to eat.  I dawdle about some more.  I sketch out a ring idea.  I tidy the kitchen.  I go running.  I wonder what the new bird song is I’m hearing.  I feed the cat.  And eventually I make my way to work where I usually stay late.  Last night I was in the Airstream until 10PM or so.  A late start means a late end to the day.  I’m slow to begin but a strong finisher.  I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I wonder though, what are your mornings like?  What would you change, if you could?  What is the very best thing about the way you start the day?  I ask because I want to know, but also because it’s good to inspect things from time to time, make the changes that need changing and appreciate the things that need appreciating.

Have a good one, you wild pack of sweet little corkers.

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