Playing for Time

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Kudos this morning to all the people who wake up ready for the day. And hugs to all who immediately feel seen because we don’t do that. I wasn’t a sleepyhead as a child, rarely even slept late during high school or college, was up before daylight most mornings as a farmer’s wife, packing lunches and/or getting ready to run some piece of heavy equipment for the next ten or twelve hours. I was awake and tracking from the second my feet hit the floor. But ya’ know, life changes things, becomes a pain (literally), and our bodies compensate by letting us off the hook here and there… let somebody else worry about (whatever) for a while. Sleep patterns change, leaving us less on point when wake time arrives, thus creating a sort of purgatory, a sometimes hellish way station where we try to simultaneously ignore the world around us and get ourselves ready to meet it in whatever ways fate has in store. I’m very spoiled… quiet is what allows me to be a functioning adult and I have a lot of it. I don’t book morning appointments unless there’s no option, and I usually have the luxury of a few hours’ grace before noon, alone, before I absolutely have to get it together. Mornings are some of my favorite writing times because writing it down is how I think things out and how I keep myself company. Thank you, my mama, for showing me the necessity for solitude and how to use it.

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Wow, check out all the coffee mugs! Must be something to it.

The word for 2024:

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And hold onto this thought, too…