The Best We Can
The cool of early morning, grasses sloshed with dew, sprinklers tick-ticking circles around the lawn. The waking sun gentle and golden, highlighting. And birds, of course, thrilled to be singing up another day. This is when I love to be out there, drinking in the top of a summer’s day. I may be running, I may be gardening, I may be sipping tea in my pajamas on the front porch steps. One thing is sure, I never want to miss a single one.
A reader asked a while back if I would share my daily routine. Such a lovely idea, I thought. If the way I spend my days can help another find her way with hers, I’m all in. I still think back to those in my life who’ve helped me see the generosity of each of my own twenty-four hours. Ever grateful for the sharing.
But then, I had to laugh and shake my head a little. Oh, the irony.
Because, for the past several months, there’s been very little routine to my days. It’s been a non-typical season, in a non-typical year, with non-typical circumstances to navigate. Most of it unexpected. Injuries and healing, milestones and moving, hopeful opportunities and hard realities. The sort of things that are uncharted, tricky, all-consuming. And unapologetically disregarding of my time management intentions. It’s been something like the newborn phase, when you realize, for right now, you’re not in control. When you simply hold on and do the best you can.
This doesn’t sound like much to offer someone who’s hopeful for the tangible daily step-by step. But then again, maybe it is. Maybe we need to know that, sometimes, it’s okay to hold on and do the best we can. It’s okay for one season of life to look different from another. It’s okay to take a breath, let go of the many routine anchor points usually ordering our days, and just choose one. A single, sturdy peg from which to hang our day. Simply show up there, however that may look. Maybe with running shoes laced up; maybe with bedhead and a cup of tea.
If nothing else, I know this, loves: for all the wild in my days, I will have been anchored by the experience of summer mornings.
And, ah, yes, YES, there’ll come the time when things have calmed and I’ll once again find and follow the familiar through-line of routine in my days. When that happens, I’ll be looping back here to share.
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And now I have to ask, How are you? I’ve been thinking of you all so much, missing you and this space where we catch up and say hello. There are new people here, too. Welcome, loves! Come in and make yourselves at home.
