Reflections on a life

Often lately, I find myself thinking about my Dad. It's been a few years now since we lost him. I still miss him. And I wonder if there wasn't something more that should have happened, some way we could have saved him. I remember vividly the telephone call I got at work that day. My mom and dad both on the line together, something that never happened. And something else new.

"Are you sitting down?", my mother asked. I remember the way my breath stopped in my chest, waiting. For what? For them to tell me it was all a joke and that everything was okay, the same as it was just seconds ago when I was thinking that my deadline for writing my pages was the most important thing in the world?

Instead, they told me that my Dad had been diagnosed with colon cancer and that it didn't look good. My Dad, sounding tearful, told me to look after my mother if something happened to him. I promised without knowing what it meant, without even thinking, still not believing anything could really happen. Not to my Dad, the man who could fix anything, the ever-present rock at the center of my universe who'd made me feel so safe I could do anything, go anywhere. He'd always been there if I needed him, not expecting anything in return except for me to do 'the right thing'.

It seems to me that over the next year I held my breath a lot, waiting. My father went through surgery and a horrific time in hospital - all his belongings were stolen and he had a terrible reaction to one of the drugs they gave him - only to find out the cancer had spread to his liver. He came home and prepared to die. For a while I was angry - with the hospital for what had happened to Dad there, with the doctors for not knowing beforehand that the cancer had spread and for not being able to do something, anything. I was even angry at my father, for having the disease at all. I was a child again, scared, my world out of control.

I am blessed because my Dad and I had the time and perspective to talk about things, to say the things we needed to say and to know how much we loved each other. But it was terrible to watch him give up hope, stop fighting, and let the cancer take him. In the end, he died at home, well-loved, and cared for by my amazing mother, helped by me, my sister, a wonderful cousin who'd lost her own father to the disease, and by a loving contingent of respite workers. He was only bed-ridden for a few days at the end, although he seemed to have shrunk to nothing in the meantime.

I've had other experiences with cancer - friends and family who've succumbed to it or, in a few miraculous cases, beaten it or lived with it well into old age. It is a specter that shadows my life because of heredity, our frenzied lifestyle, and the nature of our bodies. It is the monster in the closet or under the bed, waiting to pounce on any one of us when our guard is down. But people do survive, thrive, and become cancer-free. We are constantly learning - how to spot it, treat it, live with it, even how to prevent it. There is hope. And I believe that's where the difference lies between survival and surrender. Hope.

I wanted my father to do what I had seen him do before when things weren't fair in the world. Rise up and say no, this isn't right and I'm not having it. But in the end, he just couldn't. So I'm going to try to do it for him. Shortly, I will be starting a physical and spiritual journey of my own, traveling to Spain to do a pilgrimage. It'll be the biggest physical challenge I've ever given myself and I'm sure I'm going to love it and hate it and learn an incredible amount. But I'm also going to try to honor my father's memory and the memory of everyone who has left this world too soon because of cancer, as well as pay tribute to the people who are still here fighting. Of course I can't do it alone - I need lots of help. Stay tuned. I'll fill you in on the details soon.

Dad, I'm still trying to do the right thing. Because that's what you taught me. I love you.

Nature reclaiming her own

Today a departure from my usual nonfiction reflections - bit of a fantasy based on a place I went, adjacent to Burns Bog....


The pavement looked as frail as paper, crumpled darkly around the base of the thick tree trunks. A decade or more of nature's litter, mostly leaves and twigs, had composted itself into soil, covering what had been the parking lot of the huge plastics facility. Only where others had walked, men and less 'civilized' creatures, did the pavement show through, forming a path through the guerrilla forest. She had the feeling that if she stood too long in one place here, nature would reclaim her as well, pushing tree trunks up through the thin tissues of her body, wrapping her transitory flesh and bones in vines, so that morning glories would cascade out of her mouth, white and beautiful, if she opened it to speak. Only the birds were permitted to make noise here, their music loud and raucous, asserting nature's triumph over man. Tufts of grass thrust their roots down into the openings in the pavement around her feet, pushing them wider, like cracks spreading across an ice flow, threatening to split open and toss her down into the abyss below.

Although it unsettled her, Elspeth reveled in the place. It was nature's relentless patience at work, the earth's iron fist clothed in soft moss and fragrant blossoms. Ferns grew everywhere, their delicate foliage belying the fibrous tenacity of their roots.

The first puncture hurt a little, the new woody shoot, coming up through the bottom of her left foot. It felt like a pin prick, but rooted her to the ground. She gave in briefly to the urge to run but found she couldn't lift her foot. Then, another instant of pain as her right foot was fixed to the ground. She stood and felt a warmth curling through her, full of new, vibrant life. It flowed up inside her legs and curled between her hips for a moment, pulsing. Then, it burst forth, through her belly, her chest and finally her arms, which were suddenly stretched up, reaching toward the sun, her fingers waving gently in the wind. Her face lifted towards the warmth of the sun and she smiled, just as a bird landed on her right hand. She whispered to it in an ancient language she had just remembered and it raised its head and sang with a beauty she had never heard before. Somehow she knew she was were she belonged now and that nature had taken her back, brought her home. This was where she would stay.

An Olympic Experience

About 3 years ago, I volunteered for the 2010 Winter Olympics. I spent the 2008 and 2009 winter seasons marshaling cross-country ski events in the Callaghan Valley, near Whistler. And each year, I realized anew the staggering amount of work I'd actually committed to for free. Not that I was the only one. There were others who committed as much or more time, effort, and loss of income as I did and, luckily for me, many of them were on my team in nordic skiing. And it seemed worth it to be part of the once-in-a-lifetime experience of the 2010 Winter Games.

As the games drew nearer though, there seemed to be 2 well-defined groups working to make them happen. Those who were being paid and those who weren't. It wasn't just in my sport, and it wasn't just the 'important' people being paid. Sometimes there were paid people standing next to, and doing the same job as, volunteers. The paid people were told not to talk about being paid because the person next to them might not be. And, as I started talking to other people 'working' at the Olympics, it became obvious that some, though certainly not all, of the paid people resented the volunteers. I heard comments like, "Well I, for one, like being paid for my work." or "Must be nice to be independently wealthy so you can afford to volunteer." It seemed that some of the employees thought the volunteers devalued their work by doing their own for free. Now, let me just say right now that I am, by no stretch of the most vivid imagination, independently wealthy, nor are the other volunteers I've worked with. Let me also say that, yes, I enjoy receiving something in exchange for my time and effort.


So, all this made me wonder - was I a 'sucker' for volunteering? Was I being taken advantage of because I was too naive or unenterprising to find a way to be paid for my small part in making the games happen? I wondered this as I packed up my belongings, hoped my plants would survive my absence, said a fond farewell to my family, friends, and coworkers. I wondered this as I stumbled through getting my accommodation sorted out (what a huge task for the organizers!). I wondered this as I stood out on course those first few training days when there were only a few athletes and even fewer marshals. I wondered this as I endured days of porta-potties,lukewarm coffee, and endless sandwiches (though they tried to provide variety). I wondered this as I stood one day in my assigned spot on the course for 4 long hours as the pouring rain slowly soaked through my jacket and left me damp and chilled. And I really wondered it when an athlete from a country that will remain nameless, tore a verbal strip off me using foul language because I told him he couldn't ski the race trails because they were being groomed, even though he'd had all day to ski them earlier. Is it worth it, I thought? Is this the experience I signed up for? The short answer is no.



The longer answer is yes, but it's more complicated than that.

I met people - coaches, athletes, officials, support people, spectators - who came from all over the world for this. Yes, there was competition - lots of it and it was serious. But it wasn't about us fighting each other. There was a sense of camaraderie too, of all of us coming together to celebrate the striving for excellence, the potential we, as human beings, are capable of. It was about talking to people and helping each other, and learning about one another, whether you came from the same country or not.

There were cultural and social events in the cities nearest the venues, the world watched, in person or from in front of their televisions, and I was happy to see my fellow Canadians being unabashedly proud of their country, as well as the countries their families had come here from. The world seemed a bit smaller somehow, a little friendlier.



It astounded me how I could get off the bus at the venue and be greeted by the same smiling face each morning and that that face was still there, still smiling, at the end of the day, even though that person had stood outside in the parking lot in the weather all day. On my own team, there were always people willing to stay later, give each other a break, say something nice, do something extra. We had fun together. It humbled me to work with such dedicated, upbeat people. Athletes, coaches, and other workers (volunteer or paid) made a point of connecting, of saying thanks, of giving each other small tokens of appreciation or of helping out where they could even if it wasn't their 'job'. When there were injuries, or a death, it hit everyone. We were a global community, celebrating our triumphs and sharing the sorrows. It wasn't just about sport anymore. It was about being human and about all of us being in it together.

Was it worth it? I have to say yes. Now the Paralympics are about to begin. And I am ready to be inspired anew.

Writer's High

People often refer to ‘Runner’s High’ to describe that euphoric feeling they get after doing a run. I’ve experienced it myself. And now, thanks to my participation in the 3-Day Novel Contest (http://www.3daynovel.com/), I’ve experienced ‘Writer’s High’. Who’d have thought you can get the same energy, excitement, and endorphins out of sitting in a chair for 3 days straight as you can running a marathon? Alright, I’ve only ever actually ran a half-marathon but this was a marathon of writing!

With a mixture of fear and excitement, I approached the contest weekend. Labour Day. Every year, I’d thought about entering the contest, just to see if I could do it, write an entire novel in 3 days. But every year, the dying summer called out to me, whispering of warm, sunny days filled with friends, outdoor adventure, playing, and reveling in the weather before the chill of fall made me put away the shorts and bathing suits and dig my long underwear out of storage. So every year I thought, “next year” and made my getaway plans. This year though, I have dedicated myself, more than ever, to my creative writing so I did it – sent in my registration and the entry fee. No turning back now because I’m too well-trained to pay the money and not do the work. I told friends, family, and my classmates at SFU’s Writer’s Studio I was doing the contest. I announced it online. I left myself no way to save face if I chickened out. I was eager and excited!

I was also obsessive-compulsive, surpassing even the limits I, in my detail-oriented Virgo brain, knew I was capable of. I painstakingly planned my story, using an idea I’d worked up at a novel-writing intensive course last summer at UBC but had never written. I pulled out the storyboard I use to plan some of my short stories. Not able to find my notes from the course, I started from scratch again. I was on a mission. I wrote character worksheets, created an index card for each major scene, made notes about setting and the plot.

I created a food list, knowing no one else would be around to feed me and I put in comfort foods and ones that needed, at most, a quick few minutes in the microwave to be edible. I bought protein powder with greens in it, for energy. I added chocolate and chips to the list to feed my sweet and salt cravings and even managed to pile in some fruits, vegetables, herbal teas, and sparking mineral waters to keep myself hydrated and thinking clearly. (Later on in the contest, I would realize that thinking clearly is a relative thing, but it sounded good at the time).




I made up a schedule of meals and an overall schedule for the weekend, including writing, eating, sleeping, and yes, even a short exercise break for each day. (Those of you who have done the contest will realize how naively optimistic I was being.) A writing friend gave me some great advice and I took the schedule and superimposed it on my scene cards, adding different colored notes to show where in the story I should be at the end of Day 1, at 6 pm on Day 2 (when the contest website says you should be halfway), at the end of Day 2 and, of course, when I should finish on Day 3. (Knowing this helped me see I was on target and relax and enjoy the writing.)

Then, the first challenge arose, even before the contest started. A friend of mine was going away for the long weekend and needed someone to look after the cats in her house. I’d planned on sequestering myself in my apartment and taking occasional view breaks from the balcony, but she really needed someone. And her house is lovely and comfortable and I’d be able to write in several spots inside it and on her deck, just by moving my laptop around. But I’d be interrupted midday on the Monday to make my way home and finish, once she returned. I weighed the options. I added in packup and move time into my Monday schedule, thinking I should just about be finished my first draft when she got back and I secured her promise to transport me and my car back to my apartment if I was too sleep-deprived or too lost in my story-world to be able to drive safely. And my friend took my shopping list and stocked her cupboards and fridge for me. So, it was settled.




I arrived at her house Friday night. I set up my storyboard and my laptop, turning her dining room into my work area. I had brought a bouquet of sunflowers, a ‘Power Card’ to boost my self-esteem in moments of writing despair and a couple of ‘Angel Cards’ that I picked from my deck – love and adventure (fitting for both my own endeavour and, it turned out for my protagonist too). I found her CD player and moved it within easy reach and stacked the CDs I’d brought with me on the table. I put snacks (raw almonds and a banana) within easy reach. I ensured the lighting was good, the ergonomic keyboard was plugged into my laptop, and I could access my friend’s internet. All good. I cleared a space in the living room and spread my yoga mat on the floor, thinking I’d need to stretch and pry my body out of ‘computing posture’ from time to time. I was ready to start writing. I just needed to wait for the weekend to start.



I took a picture of my computer with the word processing program open – to the infamous blank page. Then I figured out how to set my friend’s alarm clock, climbed into her bed about 11 pm, and fell asleep. I woke about 2:30 am Saturday morning, got up with my brain buzzing, and wrote some more notes on the characters, then went back to bed just after 3. At 3:30, I realized I’d finished sleeping for the time being and got up to have breakfast and make coffee. I put a load of laundry I’d brought into the washing machine. I’m not sure whether I was thinking I had time to multitask or if I was just stalling, afraid to start.



About 4, I began writing. It took me 3 hours to write 5 pages. I told myself the beginning is always hard and it’s important to get it right to set the scene and ‘hook’ the reader. At 7 am I realized I was just too tired and went back to bed, getting up again at 8, feeling better. I wrote, taking many more short breaks than scheduled as I felt my body cramping – behind my right shoulder blade, my neck, my shoulders, my lower back. At various times I stretched out on my mat, relaxed into the child pose, did my morning salutation, a few downward-facing dogs and some cat stretches. I paced around the room, turned the music up full blast and danced around the room, breaking a sweat and breathing hard. I put my hand against the wall at the doorways and stepped through, stretching my shoulders back. I had short naps. I drank litres of coffee, tea, water, and ate lunch and dinner and snacks. I even allowed myself a 25 minute walk outside when it had nearly stopped raining. I posted status updates on my profile online about what I was going through and where in the story I was, to encourage myself and let my friends encourage me as well. It was an amazing support. I narrowly missed letting two furry black and white critters into the house that evening, instead of one - the one who did get in was my friend's cat; the other was a striped skunk who happened to be wandering through the backyard at the same time.




But mostly, I wrote. I allowed myself only 15 minutes of editing, between 5:45 pm and 6, tired of hearing the editor in my brain yelling. “How do you know it’s any good? What about the sentence structure? Do you even remember what you wrote this morning? How about that character development, hey – how do you think that’s going?” I think she was just feeling left out, since I usually give her free rein to jump in any time and overrule my writer. This time though, my writer was in her glory, flying down one track, unsure if it would take her where she needed to go but knowing she just had to go there and see. There wasn’t time to think about it too much. Her fingers flew across the keyboard and she felt great. At times, she didn’t stop typing to think, just leapt and waited to see where she’d land. The story took on a life of its own. The characters did as they damn well pleased. My writer was playing and running and laughing. She was free.

I love being in ‘the zone’ like that when I’m writing and I realized I don’t often enough give myself the freedom to get there. This time though, the thought of the deadline and my schedule kept me from overanalyzing and second-guessing. At one point (on Day 2), I got back from a break and sat down, surprised the story had stopped when I stopped writing. I’d been like a child listening to someone else tell me a story and I thought I’d be able to just read from where I’d left off. Nothing like that has ever happened to me before and I was thrilled because it meant my story was a living thing and that its own momentum would help me carry it forward. At 10 pm, I stopped writing for the day, having finished Day 1 with Chapter 4 and 40 pages.

The next day was much the same. The cat woke me to get out at 3:30 and I chose to sleep some more after I played cat doorman. I woke and started at 6:30 am but, from the start, it felt harder. The weather was on my side though. All weekend it rained, alternating between a light mist and pouring, the water falling with such force from the sky that it bounced a foot back up in the air, coming down in sheets and drumming on the house. I was grateful for the lack of tempting sunshine, feeling safe and cocooned inside (once I turned on the fireplace and the heat to take the chill off). The rain even found its way into my story, drenching my protagonist and helping to make her adventure more challenging.




My friend’s downstairs tenant and his friend came home Sunday afternoon. They left me alone to write except for an hour in the evening, for which I will be forever grateful. For that hour, they came upstairs, poured me a glass of wine, massaged my tired arms, and cooked me a lovely BBQ steak dinner. We ate and talked and I had a break that refreshed both my brain and body. They were wonderful. I wrote until 11:30 and finished Day 2 with 63 pages.

On Day 3, I finally needed the alarm clock to wake up. It went off at 6:19 and I shut it off, noticing the cat was still snoring softly and had no intention of going outside. I woke again just before 8 am in a panic, the way you do when you realize you went back to sleep after the alarm and are now late for work. I jumped up, put breakfast beside the computer and was typing by 8. The adrenaline coursing through me made me an effective writer and I had just reached the beginning of the novel’s climax when my friend and her companions arrived home. It was noon, perfect timing.




From 12 to 1:30 I packed everything up, came home, ate lunch, set up, and was back at my computer by 1:30, about to bring my story to its most exciting point. I wrote for an hour, took a half hour nap, then got up and finished the first draft. Just after 4:30 on Monday I was done the writing!

I cleaned myself up and went for a walk down by the beach. The rain had finally stopped and the sun was out. A walk that usually takes about an hour was done in 35 minutes. I was so high on the experience that I couldn’t slow down. A man jumped down onto the seawall in front of me and started slowly jogging. Despite having to stop and tie my shoe, I stayed the same distance behind him the whole way, him jogging, me walking. He kept looking back at me and was wondering, I’m sure, why I was walking so fast but I couldn’t help it. I also couldn’t help the huge smile on my face. People looked at me and smiled and said hello. Their eyes followed me as I went by. Later I would check myself in the mirror to make sure I didn’t look completely outlandish somehow to attract so much attention. But I looked normal, except for the fact that I was grinning from ear-to-ear and floating about 6 inches above the ground. I was feeling happy and amazed, powerful and beautiful, and incredibly wound up.

After my walk, I came back and sat down to edit. I did a spell check, and a cursory edit to ensure my character’s eyes didn’t change color and no one came back from the dead. I filled in a few blanks for my reader, realized it needed a thorough edit that wouldn’t be part of this initial process and, just after 11 pm Monday, I saved the file.




89 pages and 10 chapters. I opened the bottle of champagne I’d put in the fridge before all this started, toasted the origin of my writing, my friends and family (for supporting me), my characters, and myself. I don’t often drink alone but somehow this time it seemed appropriate. I had given a life to my story and added an incredible story to my own life. I had written a novel!

Riding in the Dark

Two nights ago I joined friends for a movie in Vancouver. Loath to sit in the lineup for the Lions Gate Bridge for a half hour, I instead rode my bike across from West Van, through the craziness of downtown and over the Burrard Bridge, using the new bike lane. It was great! In the past, I've ridden the Burrard Bridge, stuck between the speeding traffic and the pedestrians I was sharing the sidewalk with. There was nothing there to keep me from falling into the car lanes, not a guardrail, not even a raised edge to the sidewalk. I was always worried that, as I passed a pedestrian from behind, yelling, "On your left!", they'd turn to look and bump me into traffic. But with the new bike lane, the pedestrians and I have a new, happier relationship. They aren't scared of being run down and I'm not scared of dying under the wheels of a bus. It's all good.

On the ride back home, which I shared with my friend and ardent bike commuter, David, we cut through Stanley Park. It was dark and there were few cars. And luckily, David's lights were much more efficient than my little 'emergency' ones. (I don't usually ride at night.) As we rode along the park roads in the darkness, I felt the adrenaline rise inside me. I became the child at play, the girl on an adventure. The night was warm and clear and beautiful and flying along the pavement felt good. The night closed in on us, our lights creating a tunnel we traveled through.

At night on a bike, you concentrate on what lies ahead, in your line of vision, and not on all the peripheral stuff. It's fun and your way is clear. It struck me that this is another way of living in the moment, this temporary cleaving of the darkness as you pass through it. It closes up again behind you and your world is defined by the reach of a beam of light. It feels good to be able to let everything else go and concentrate on just your small bit of time and space. It's freeing somehow.

When we left the pavement and turned up onto the gravel trail through the trees, the darkness became more intense and we had to slow to follow the curves, not seeing where the trail went except for a few feet ahead. A small, dark, shadow animal ran across the path between our wheels and startled me but it was probably no less startled by our presence. (David's reassurance that it was probably a rat didn't actually help.) When we finally emerged from the trail out onto the pavement by the bridge, my adrenaline was high. The pedaling back across the bridge to West Vancouver was easy and I was almost disappointed when we made it to our destination and I climbed off my bike. Just like that, playtime was over and the world expanded back to its usual self but it felt smaller now somehow, more friendly. Perhaps it's just a matter of how brightly you let your light shine.

Whose voice is it, anyway?

In taking my writing courses and in my writing practice, the question of voice seems to recur, over and over and over again.

There's the traditional idea of voice in literature, regardless of in what genre it belongs. Who's the narrator, do they tell you the story in first, second, or third person? Are they a character in the story, or one outside of it, telling you what's happening?

In a travel writing course I just took (an excellent one, by the way), the use of voice kept coming up - other people's voices, the voices of the people you meet, the characters inhabiting your tales and the places you journey to, making them real and interesting for your readers. Readers want to hear their voices, know the people you come across, care about them, learn their stories, and you, the writer, are only the conduit. Your own voice is only important in as far as you, the author, represent them, the readers.

In writing nonfiction we all find different voices and, because some of it is autobiography of a sort, the voice we choose to use is often our own. Funny how we have to struggle to understand what our own voices should sound like, instead of just having them flow organically out. It's as if we're strangers to ourselves, just learning how to talk. But then, talking to ourselves is not the point, is it? So we must define and hone our voices to ones that others can hear, are willing to listen to, want to listen to, even. And for so many of us writers, as perhaps is also the case with nonwriters, we are constantly discovering new facets to our own voices, experimenting, trying things on for size, discarding what doesn't serve us, doesn't fit our narrative or our own self-image.

For some of us, having so long suppressed our natural voices,trying to silence them or make them like everyone else's, we aren't even sure what we really sound like anymore. It becomes a process of discovering ourselves and our own voice. So now, just as I am learning to hear my own voice, I'm also learning that it's the voice of others I need to write. And my own voice once again becomes a background whisper, informing the 'othervoice' of my writing.

For such a long time though (an eternity it seems), my voice was silent - through the nonwriting years, those times when physical activity became my means of expression. When 'sweating it out', pushing myself until I could barely breathe, let alone speak, was the point. My body did the talking then. So now, when I write, my own voice refuses to be silenced; to take a back seat to the voices of my characters, even if they are real people in real places, with so much more to say than I could ever hope for.

It becomes louder, more insistent, the more I try to downplay it, like a child shushed too often, rebelling. But, like a child, when given free rein, it says things I can never have imagined - embarrassing, if honest, things. No one wants to talk about that, I tell it. "BUT I DO," it insists and there is no way to quiet it without making a scene. Perhaps that's the gift of being a writer, as well as the curse. That your voice, once acknowledged and encouraged, is unable to be silenced.

The Pleasures of Insomnia

I lay awake very early this morning, as often happens, my mind a whirling, restless creature full of thoughts that will not be silenced or made the least bit quieter, even temporarily, so I can sleep. I lay on my right side, my back; then threw myself over onto my left side, wrapping my arm around my pillow and drawing it more tightly beneath my head and neck. I clamped my eyes more firmly shut against the faint light filtering in through my lashes. Finally, after what seemed an interminable time, I looked at the clock, having avoided it till then so I would not have the additional insomniac pleasure of knowing how many hours I counted down tossing and turning before dragging myself, exhausted, from my bed. It was 4:47 a.m.

I got up and walked around the apartment, gazing out the window at the lights of downtown and the gently brightening sky. I logged into my computer and sat on the couch, reading messages and replying to them, aware that whoever I was writing to would see the time stamp and realize my predawn sleeplessness, but it was better than lying awake in my bed. Finally, urged by the beautiful morning shining outside my window, I decided to try something new. I hurriedly dressed, threw a baseball cap over my sleep-tousled hair and drove down to the beach and the seawall. Only a few other cars were parked in the lot as I started my trek by the water.

I walked through the delicate morning light; the blue, white, and pink hues of the lightening sky reflecting onto the water beside me. Everywhere the birds were busy making their living. Seagulls trying to swallow too-large, flat, silver, disc-shaped fish that minutes earlier, had been swimming among the rocks on the bottom of the ocean, crows dropping white-grey oysters upon the rocks in an effort to break open their shells and get at the tender bodies inside, white-crowned sparrows flitting and pecking among the dried grass stems and calling to one another, and stilt-legged herons stalking their breakfast along the shoreline.



At first, I saw few people and reveled in the solitude and the glory of the morning. I felt virtuous and clever to be out so early. But there was something more. I felt immensely grateful – for the sea, the light, the birds, the dew on the plants, the very air I felt filling my lungs. It seemed to me, as I walked, that my life was like the day – sitting there open and waiting and full of possibility. There was a clarity and brilliance to the day. Then I began to meet others, coming and going, making their morning journeys as I was. And I noticed, in their faces, a certain optimism and openness that was missing when I take this walk in the late afternoons. People look you in the eyes in the morning and smile easily and say hello. Later in the day, these same people, or perhaps other people on the same route, their minds full of the day's problems, avoid meeting your gaze and, if they do look at you, keep a carefully neutral expression lest you are tempted to begin a conversation with them. For these new, fresh, smiling, morning people, I was also grateful.

I realize now that I have been missing out on one of the best parts of the day when I sometimes lie in bed staring at the ceiling above me, tossing my body from side to side in an effort to get comfortable enough to drift off again. This morning, my mind, instead of being full of thoughts that torment me, raced with inspiration, plans, empowerment, and joy. Perhaps my body is wiser than I give it credit for and perhaps, next time it wakes me in the fragile dawn hours, I will listen more closely instead of trying to silence it.