Daily Warmup

Every morning (well, almost every morning) I sit in front of my computer staring at the WordPress site and its little white button that says “Write”. And I write.

In a way, this blog is the warmup exercise for everything else I do in a day, whether it be writing or work. This blog loosens my fingers up and loosens my mind up. There is a full day ahead of me to make of it what I will.

Sometimes that is merely existing, moving myself toward the door with my computer case for a day of work. Sometimes it’s gleefully playing with my cats. Sometimes it’s a productive day at home writing or at work teaching.

But the blogging in the morning is essential, framing my inspirations for the day.

Today’s tasks are monitoring and answering email from students and prepping for Camp NaNo. I have already answered five at 6:20 AM. (This is rare because my students generally abhor mornings.)

It feels like a good day, although one that would benefit from coffee. (Lots of coffee).

Welcome to My Winter Morning

Sunday morning, and Richard and I sit on the couch over coffee and Baroque music.

Our living room provides comfort with cream and burgundy and dark wood. Clutter from projects and plant catalogs litter the coffee table as garden planning helps us through the winter days. I sit on the couch next to Richard with a lap desk on my lap, tapping on the keys of a Microsoft Surface. Words come slowly today; maybe the coffee hasn’t taken effect yet.

The beans that Richard roasted came from Malawi, and the coffee brews up rich and brown sugar sweet with a slight herbal note. Yo-Yo Ma plays Bach on cello over a set of old yet functional speakers.

Chucky, the big butterscotch-colored cat, races upstairs chasing an unseen sprite. Me-Me, grey tabby and white, regards us with her huge, wondrous green eyes. Snowy, pitch-black and ironically named, sits in front of the fake fireplace warming herself by electric heat. Girlie-Girl, calico patched, demands something. Richard shrugs his shoulders and tells the cat he has no idea what she wants.

I light a candle, and the scent of sandalwood wafts to me. I drink my second cup of coffee and think about the seeds cold-stratifying in the refrigerator and other seeds in their packets waiting for the right time to be introduced to soil and water. It’s winter outside, and the weather forecast says it will get even colder, but for now I sit in my warm house on a Sunday morning.

Magic in the morning

Yesterday I made Richard stop at the Farmers’ Market while on our way to move my office things back into place for the school year. Little did I know it was to be a magic morning.

First, I should point out that I was wearing my writers’ shirt as I so often do — a t-shirt that says “I’m getting dangerously close to killing you off in my next novel”. That got attention from one woman in her thirties who self-publishes romance novels, a woman my age who dabbled in writing, and a young woman who writes for herself. So we stood around and talked about our experiences in writing, in what it means to be a writer, in dreams and realities.

Not the sort of conversation I expected in Maryville. Which is why it never happened before.

Later, as I walked around the ring of merchants, a little girl on her mother’s lap looked straight at me and said, “That bird over there is singing to you.”

I need no greater magic than this.