Monday Morning Wake-Up Call

Posted on by Live & Learn

The Good News.

There’s no morning drive to Work. No 40 minute commute home in traffic.

There’s no one hour Metro North ride into the city for Manhattan meetings. No one hour return trip on packed commuter trains jostling for an open seat.  There’s no walk to/from the commuter trains in suffocating humidity.  As Jeffrey Eugenides puts it: “It was one of those humid days…you could feel it: the air wishing it was water.”

Today, the commute from Bed to Breakfast to Office is less than one minute. Air conditioning cools, a steady 71° degrees.

The Less Good News.

Work Hours: Up ~20% per day. Calls, emails, Zooms, conference calls. Add the pandemic anxiety to the tonic, and you have a giant Boa asphyxiating its prey, as I sit, sit, sit, and sit some more — from daybreak to late dinner, and again the next day, and the next and the next.  And the body, and the mind Scream: You’re sliding Pal, things gotta change. These Home Office walls are closing in.

The Pivot.

On May 5th, I began the journey.

A 5-mile walk to Cove Island Park on the Long Island Sound.

Every. Single. Day @ 4:30 am. ~ 90 minute loop.

An open air walk-in theatre with live bird song music.

Each daybreak is adorned with a new palette of colors, whispering Lightly Child, Lightly. This World is so much bigger than yours.

And so, I would ask you? How can you possibly not be inspired by this?

Notes:

  • 2020, a summary by oakesfegleys (via Your Eyes Blaze Out)
  • DK Photo: Daybreak. Heron. 5:49 am. July 19, 2020. 74° F.  Weed Avenue, Stamford, CT
  • Inspired by: “I have refused to live locked in the orderly house of reasons and proofs. The world I live in and believe in is wider than that. And anyway, what’s wrong with Maybe?” —  Mary Oliver, excerpt of “The World I Live In”, in “Felicity”
  • Inspired by: “Fragile creatures of a small blue planet, surrounded by light years of silent space.” —  Jeanette Winterson, ‘Written on the body’ (February 1, 1994, Vintage) (via Beth @ Alive on All Channels)
  • “Lightly Child, Lightly” was written by Aldous Huxley

56 thoughts on “Monday Morning Wake-Up Call”

  1. What a gift it is, to sit in the presence of ever changing beauty! I perish at the thought of not being there each day ha! Beautiful captures DK! 👏👏👏 keep going.

  5. I’m glad you have carved out your ritual that cannot be touched (at least I think you have made it so). And lucky for us you now have your new love of photography that you share with us.

    2. Yes Dale, that’s what is impressing me too – Dave starts something and then pulls through with it – He’s got a plan as one of our dear old English ladyfriends said: We have to make a plan…..
      And I’m double impressed that it’s no longer the mind-killing jogging but a purposeful, peaceful walk our friend is going for! And thank you for pointing out the lovely things about those walks. The photography and the seeing eyes 🙂

      2. I bought a ring about the same amount for my birthday this year. So once I’ve paid it down, my camera is next. We have his, mine and our money. I like the allowence for each each month. That ways there’s no questions asked.

  8. Heron. 5:49 am…David some have said…”Heron symbolism is teaching you how to become comfortable in uncertain situations. Therefore it would be prudent to watch for opportunities so that you can quickly grasp them and move on…”of course there is much more… just liked the thoughts…the gift of a Heron…sending joy Hedy ☺️💫

  10. Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
    Early morning, amazing nature … seems time has stood still!! … “Each daybreak is adorned with a new palette of colors, whispering Lightly Child, Lightly. This World is so much bigger than yours.
    And so, I would ask you? How can you possibly not be inspired by this?” … #TimeStandStill …

  12. Oh it moves… yes, indeed, I am a realist, a pragmatist, someone who can feel and agree to Truth, with a capital T. We are, in FACT, moving forward in the folds of her arms–Time.

    That is a lie.

    I am not a linearist
    I make it all up
    one sound at a time

    starting to make up new words for new times, which include some side effects from something I don’t share…
    good drugs? bad drugs? in between
    doses.

    But I am a good liar — used to make money doing it…a criminal life, only in my head.
    I’m a writer
    I make up words, I make up realities with narratives — oh the devil is so seductive, offering me sweets on silver platters every fucking morning. I resist….her/him/them

    I respond to the words
    I see–sometimes I read them too — seeing them and seeing what they hide too — a long linear lesson, a graph from 40 years ago, when I finally and first time to look at the length of the sentences, instead of the narrative. Through the looking glass? not quite.

    Every day —
    an offering, an invitation, a sweet treat on a tray.
    You/me/it/spirit/wind have choices

    until we don’t.

    I wish I were funnier. Oh well, fuck it. I can’t sing in a piano bar either, laying back and nodding sweetly and intimately with MY keyboard master, let’s do this one, totally by ear. god didn’t give me these gifts. I’m furious . about that. I try to let her go….

    and yet I have her yoked …. we’re in sync.
    __

      1. I have to say, I am very impressed with how quickly you got into photography and mastered the basics.

        My brain puts so many obstacles in my way when I want to learn something new. You inspire me.

        That being said, I miss all your commute posts. Especially, Walking Cross Town.

        Do you miss Manhattan? I’m sure it misses you!

  15. There is SO much to like about this post…. Where do I start, where does it end?! It’s perfection.
    Here it’s the same – minus the long morning walk – NOBODY gets HH out of bed at 5am, nobody – I used to say (at the beginning of our life together, when I was the early bird) that his bed could be on fire and all which would happen is that he pulls up his feet….. nothing has changed, but I adapted, as I did so often!
    You are my new early morning hero – but also I would dismally fail because by now I couldn’t get up that early either….

  16. We have a new ritual. We normally sleep like a baby. Head hits the pillow and we are gone.
    But we had some french drains installed last month in our backyard. We thought spending 4000 bucks on our new house would be fun. It was a nightmare. The drains were poorly installed.
    Now we lay awake, thinking of how we are going to fix them; how much it will cost to bring the guy whose bid we DIDNT go with in to fix them; how much crow we will have to eat to do so; googling in the dark on the phone how to install a french drain, the price of topsoil, sharpshooter shovels, pallets of grass, maybe a flagstone patio, and then looping back into the resentment we have against the SOB that SCREWED us in the first place.
    We really hate living like this.

      1. Yeah, while I’m having visions of Pennywise the clown sitting in my flooded kitchen laughing at me I am also reciting to myself “Lightly, child, lightly…”.
        I’m not sure how long it will take to get Huxley to work for me.

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