I am not the one who invented getting things done early in the morning. Like many an adult I have learned that the hours just after breakfast (a meal which invariably comes just after dawn) are when I will be most productive. So that’s when the important emails are written, papers are graded, music is looked over, whatever is most important for my day.
On these blissful unstructured days of holiday, the most important thing is whatever I deem it to be, and writing has been my priority. So I stumble over to laptop and push the small gray power button on my way to the coffee pot in the morning, and sit in front of the worn keys not long after.
Much of what I write will never see the light of day. That’s as it should be. When I sing, much of my preparation for public creativity is locked away in the practice room. The blank screen, filled with lines of palatino linotype which is later edited away, is just another practice room.
But most mornings, despite myself, I have a moment when a gear shifts inside of me, and the confluence of what I have to say, what I have the capability to communicate and what might matter to someone streams out into a few inspired sentences. If I’m lucky, I get 200 good words.
It’s silly, it’s nothing, when I can look around me and, without even moving from my seat see thousands of words: on bills and postcards, in books and magazines, on a poster, on a card affixed to the fridge.
I know the truth: My inconsequential words are a miracle, like the rest of my life. They are a special treasure that the world cannot touch. They exist where I become more than myself. Like each tiny miracle they are more than enough for a day. They are more than enough for a lifetime.
What are your miracles? What were your last 200 good words?
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