A Sunrise Is A Gamble That Wins Every Time

I wake to the sound of books hitting the ground. It is dark, and the cat is scampering to hide. Still, I begrudgingly pull my body toward the window to find dawn scraping at the corner of the sky, orange fingers flipping the page to a new day.

My head hits the pillow again. The next time I wake up, the light has doubled in size. Blue-grey streams through the soft white curtains. Cats purr contentedly at the foot of the bed. I rub the corners of my eyes, the groggy dregs of sleep fading as I will myself to sit up. The books are still on the floor, though my cat has mercifully not decided to turn the covers into a scratching post, as she often does. I stumble to pick them up, straightening the pile as I rearrange them on the end table. Glugs of water hit my parched mouth next, as if in sleep I have spent my time wandering through deserts of the subconscious.

It is easy to be annoyed at the cats waking me before the sun does. It is easy to resent their early games and cries for breakfast, their bids for attention. But what a gift it is to be needed so much.

Sometimes, when I wake early enough to see that palm of dawn held out on the horizon, I don’t go back to sleep. I meditate toward the open window, try to shutter a picture of the streaks of pastels when I blink my eyes closed. Try to remember how quiet the morning can be before the rush of traffic takes over the street below. When I open my eyes again, upright and cross-legged, the colors have evaporated, and I have successfully cocooned myself in the solitude of a day blossoming. A little pistil gathering dew. A hard swallow. 

I am not a manifestor, New Age spiritual guide or practitioner. In all honesty, I am a heady skeptic and resistant to most magic. But there is a glimmer of something beyond understanding in these early mornings, there is something to hold onto that carries through. Peacefulness, intention. Surrender to the cats that wake me, acceptance that once again I find my books on the floor. I pick them up, every time. I place them on the table. I arrange them straight. I drink my water. I make my coffee. My cocoon opens. A soft pistil.  

These little rituals give me a throughline, a story to ride through the day. It makes sense, for someone like me, so married to my little words and sentences and poetry. Grasping tightly to my physical books, happier to bear the weight of lugging them around rather than switch to something more convenient like a Kindle. You’d think for someone brought up in the era of the Internet, well-versed in all the social media technologies and the like, would be more willing to open my mind to something other than these analog forms of writing. But I am not. And I prefer my pen and ink as well. 

Maybe it’s because it’s something to hold onto. Something physical, almost sensual, to touch and remember. The light of sunrise slips away but the books remain. The days run together but my daily journal entries imprint them, give a time stamp to my life that can be called upon, over and over.

I relish the time before time, the day before day begins. The hours I spend curled up in an armchair, my phone on DND, a book in my lap and a cat in the crook of my arm, purring with a full belly, as though she is not a devilish little imp with a nose for destruction. That’s the life I’m going for, too: a little bit of trouble, and not a care in the world.

The cats remind me to take little risks, even if that risk is simply not returning to sleep. Risk the loss of rest for the experience of a sunrise. Risk meeting someone new for the chance to make a connection you would have otherwise missed. 

Sometimes I think that clients, new or otherwise, are afraid of taking that risk. Reaching out to a stranger, to see if she might hold that little nugget of peace you’ve been after — or perhaps that nugget of trouble, instead. But there is no reward without risk. We all need a little push sometimes. For me, it’s the books falling to the ground. For you – well, that’s for you to discover. Would you rather spend your days pining behind a screen, absorbing a picture that will never live up to reality? It’s like scrolling the website of a resort off a beautiful coastline. You can get an idea of what it’s like, but you won’t really know how it smells, how it tastes, how it feels, until you go. 

Don’t let me be a picture of a sunrise. You can go back to sleep, wandering through dreams endlessly. Or you can take a chance, stay up, experience something. Let your life be a little grander.

Meet me at that stretch of horizon, that impossible distance that becomes possible. I promise it’s worth the risk.