Mornings

Mornings.

     Morning is something so private. The universe swells as the morning unfolds, every petal a different facet to expose. Everything that matters for a day of survival and prosperity uploads as the muscles and bones stretch. Alive feels righteous. Pop. Twist. Shoulders move and rotate, align the spine. Awake feels good. Mind is self-amused. Already reaching out to the Muses. Deep breath next. Reach out and text. Morning is about warmings. Mold reality with warm purpose as it's forming.

     My animal is awake before the rest of me. So my feet need to move to a beat. My chest needs a hundred compressed breaths and several extended ones. Chi Kung Tai Chi, Yoga, and the right playlist to get me hype and sway to this. If today happens, make it real. Word is bond. Spoken word creates the rising dawn so I free style before breakfast, re-set every mental template, raise the bar for the day. Any day might be my last. Mortality is a daily meditation. I see myself thrown into a fire. Gray with age and disease. Torn apart by small arms fire, ricocheting in a public restroom. Eaten by wild dogs. Struck by lightning. By trucks. By logs. By chains that wrap about and snap my neck. And then comes the sun. If any day could be my last, every day should be treated as my first. Mornings are an adventure.

     I remember people who matter, lessons gained, changes made, dynamic shifts and lay my maps out, knowing as soon as I leave the house I'll be running or skating. Improv reaction time only. But I revel in that. Mornings are a time to overprepare for the best day I can have, the best physical and mental stasis. The right morning sets me to look forward to the whole of days.

     Waking up with company turns a morning into a shared story. The journey begins before my eyes open, bodies already attuned to one another. Working a graveyard schedule means I don't always know when it's day or night, but I never forget a heat signature. Full physiofeedback comes from physical empathy and the current resonates in the same place music does. It's how turtles know to swim thousands of miles home to spawn--the first time. If the energy doesn't feel like home, I'd rather sleep alone. But the mind melding, the comfortable chamber of acceptance, the warm conduit that soaks up my heat and caramel electric energy, returns it as purple fire? That turns a morning into a proper story beginning.

     Anywhere in the world, alone or not, well-rested or not my days will find morning just 10 minutes too soon. Waking up is just such an experience for my head. So I let my animal handle it instead.