Wake Up Slow

I’m constantly in search of the perfect morning routine.  Daily, I wake up to a bulleted list.  On deck today: call mom, buy my flight to La Paz, make a Post Office run to ship some guest items that they left behind, and practice yoga.  I’m wrestling with the precarious balance between my thoughts that tell me I’m worthless if I don’t get out bed and my heart’s contradictory desire to stay put.

I’m painfully aware that most of the bullet points on my morning to do list will remain uncrossed off until late evening if at all.  Santa Barbara’s notorious morning gloom doesn’t help.  Clouds roll down from the Santa Ynez mountains over this sleepy, surf town until about 9am, when the sun burns them all away.  For the remainder of the day, not one wisp of a cloud can be seen for miles.

It’s funny how the most innocuous tasks feel so burdensome sometimes.  It’s almost like the longer things stay on my to-do list, the harder they are to take off of it.

I flip back through pages of my agenda.  On the past three, the words ‘clean your retainer’ are scrawled in cursive, sometimes underlined, sometimes even highlighted.  My metal mouthpiece is indeed in need of a deep clean.  After all, it’s only been six months.  Fears of some sort of mouth fungus prevent me from coming close to it.  It’s only when I look in the mirror and notice that my bottom row of teeth are starting to turn away from one another like they’re giving each other the silent treatment that I’m reminded of that damn bullet point: clean your f**king retainer!

6:34 AM thought: Music isn’t patient any more.  It isn’t nuanced.  Nor does it wait for you to be surprised.  TikTok cheapens everything it touches.  Songs are force-fed to you in six second clips. No longer does music tether us to moments and feelings.