A Morning Practice

A Saturday before the house wakes

I’m laying under my warm covers feeling my wife’s body heat and mine combined. I don’t open my eyes. A delicate foot jams itself under my back. Our daughter crawled into our bed during the night.
I fight through the thickness of sleep, blinking the sleep out of my eyes. I glance up at my window. The sun is rising. My eyes dart to my 80’s-style alarm clock, the bright red rice-like display showing 5:25 am, on a Saturday. I silence the 6 am alarm.

My mind is slow and groggy, begging me to roll over and go back to sleep. My now exposed arm begins to prickle from the chill in the room.

My nostrils fill with chilly air. It dries the nasal passages ever so slightly. By the time it enters my lungs I can no longer feel the temperature or humidity difference. I feel my abdomen expand, a slight pleasurable stretch in my abs. I release the breath and feel it all collapse. I repeat the inhale, and this time my feet push out away from me, my trunk twists, my arms splay out in an unnatural twisting angle. My muscles are wrung like a wet towel as I exhale the breath. Glancing over to my nightstand, there is a Post-it note with three practices on it: gratitude, meditatio malorum, memento mori. I reach out and grab a bottle of water. My tongue sticks to the back of my throat as if I had just swallowed a spoonful of peanut butter. The water has been chilled by the bedroom’s cold air, and as it flows down my esophagus I can feel my body waking even further. I throw the blankets off myself, careful not to wake my family, and throw my feet over the edge of the bed, down to the hardwood floor. The floor might as well have been a glacier. My body recoils internally for a second. I walk over to my desk, grab my sweatsuit, and dress. The soft fleece against my skin is soft, reflecting my body heat back and holding it. I squat low, my legs protesting being used so aggressively first thing in the morning. My quads tighten under the sweats as I command them to rise up. I repeat this ten or so times. The final time, I shift over and drag my meditation pillow out of its corner and throw it under me as I sit down. My eyes settle on the plaster wall, the rough trowel marks evident below the egg-shell-white paint.

Thank you, Lord, for another day on this earth to serve you and help others, and another chance to be the man you created me to be.

I learned a phrase from Marcus Aurelius: I expect to meet the meddling, the ungrateful, and the arrogant. I resolve right then — they cannot touch my character. I use the phrase to begin and end my meditation.

My mind centers on my breathing, then a Saturday morning customer melting down over a machine that isn’t behaving the way he would like. I’ll calmly go over his scenario and walk him through the machine’s operation again. He is emotional. No need for me to drown with him.

Next, my mind centers on my three-year-old daughter throwing a temper tantrum. I feel my lips curl into a smile. It’s amusing — the emotional outburst of a grown man and my toddler resemble each other.

My wrist vibrates fifteen minutes later, my Apple Watch alerting me to get up and move again. I open my eyes and shift my head to the left. My Life Calendar hangs below a print of my favorite Triumph Bonneville portrait, and above that a picture of my wife when I first started dating her.

I rise from the cushion and return to my desk. My journal, still open from the previous evening’s reflection entry, waits for the fountain pen’s ink. I sit down and journal these thoughts into the morning page. The pen nib scratches across the page. I scrawl what came up. The customer. The tantrum.

My eyes find the Life Calendar above the desk. It’s about half-filled. My heart rate speeds up a few beats. I feel my jaw clench.

The frictions matter. They make up my days. They cannot touch my character.