Habits

Having just read about a night walk and badgers in FEELS LIKE FAR by Linda Hasselstrom, I an struck by two things. After twenty five years of marriage to a farmer, my natural owl nature has morphed into a lark and I now rise early. Second she found and I suppose she still does finds peace in the quiet of nature during her night walks. In this I am like her.

Dawn is my best time. Well to be truthful I often rise before dawn. IN those still quiet hours I can read , write , knit and think. Somehow my day falls into place during these silent hours alone except for the dogs who usually have returned to their beds. As I sip coffee I can contemplate the tasks to be done, the hopes and goals of my life and then I dress and enter the real world. Six A.M. me finds on the way to school if I am not already there, and once again in the time before students arrive I can complete planning, grading and all those teacherly tasks.

Nature is with me in the last hoots of the owl, the song and chatters of the sparrows and wren, the honks of the geese during their semi annual migrations over my house. I started a scarf knitting the color of the sky each morning.It is still unfinished as it got too cold to go outside to watch the sky while I knit two rows, but the habit of being aware of the sky and the plays of grey, blacks and even steel blue mornings has become a habit. So I sky watch a few minutes daily and let the moment calm and renew my spirit.

One of my friends pairs the sunrise each day to thank God for her recovery from not one but several brain tumors.Nature too has touched her and filled her days with glorious blues , pinks, purples and oranges of sunrise. These sunrises of hers have allowed me to gift special people with a special moment on a memorable day in their life.

During hiatuses from the classroom, I love to be out in a quiet place away from traffic, phones. televisions while I write or read. the constant noises of daily living are left behind and my mind can work through ideas, fashion words into pictures or simply just be present in the moment.

However heat sends me scurrying to a cooler place. heat has never been my friend and now it is even more something I have little toleration for due to medications. By noon most summer days I am in for the day so I can function. Fall and spring are my outdoor seasons. I envy those who can tolerate the heat.

Still I who used to vacuum at midnight before I married, I am not unhappy with my lark habits. They serve me well. I am never late and I still stay up to eleven or later during the months of of along daylight. The shorter winter days often find me snuggled in bed with a good book somewhat earlier, but that I end almost all of my days.

Linda and the badger has inspired this long ramble and made me think of my own habits and what they give me. Such self awareness is not a bad thing.