Writing

So this morning as I was driving to work I had a fleeting thought about writing and what would I write if I wrote. It came to my mind that I had taken a writing class one semester many many years ago and my success with one of the assignments. Using that assignment as a guide I thought I would see if I could describe a typical morning so I came up with this. It is a description of a typical morning using this morning as the basis but using thoughts, etc. from other morning to make it something typical.

I'm not saying this is really earth shattering interesting but I was pleased with my result and thought I'd just share it here.

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It is dark when she arises - as always she misses the sun. She’s a sun lover. The day is normal, whatever that might mean. The shower is good, hot water running over her body. Cold air greets her at the end. The desire to get back in and stand is strong but the day waits.

Showered and made up and coiffed and garmented she then steps into the kitchen for the next tier of preparations - a daily regimen of vitamins without which she refuses to live. Life was getting hard before the discovery of vitamins and minerals and hormone assistance. There’s an old, probably expired, packet of migraine pills in the cabinet, a reminder of those days.

There are some thoughts accompanying her today - nagging issues that hang out in the back of her mind concerning some of life's chronic life pains. Once these life pains were debilitating, freezing her inside the world of fear and depression, making her angry. Stress was a constant companion and her body and mind were not appreciative. She paid a price. Her family didn’t fair very well under the load either. They all appreciate the vitamins and the fairly recent resolutions she’s embraced.

These thoughts are only fleeting. The clock keeps her on track. Work is waiting.

She stops to visit with Hub in the room they have dubbed his “man space”. She finds him there each morning starting his day getting the news and checking up on all his friends on a popular social network. She does that too on the days she's ahead of schedule. He reads and researches a great deal also so perhaps he is in that place.

These two are as opposite as two people can be. The relational challenges they have faced in thirty five years of marriage are myriad. The crises points numerous. The history of them is a book in itself. Today they live in peace. There is no doubt that they love each other and by the grace of a good and faithful and enduring Father they have reached today.

He opens his Bible to a marked passage in Psalms. He’s been reading this passage for a few weeks now. “Lord, teach us to live wisely and well” it begins. Would that that had been their prayer in the beginning. It wasn’t. Begin where you are. “Give us some good times to make up for the bad times”. Yes, Lord.

She kisses him good by for the day, gathers up purse and food bag and steps out into the still dark morning. Though she misses the sun she doesn’t begrudge the night it’s few more hours. She goes to work early by choice so that she can come home early.

The parking lot is wet and the air is filled with drizzle. She parks her little Cadillac on the back side of the lot. They live in an apartment complex and rather than contend for the two up close spots she found a spot just to the side of the garages, just beside the trailer Hub has his equipment in, to park. Much better in her mind as everyone seems to acknowledge that particular space as hers. She doesn’t like to change all the time. Hubby thinks she’s a little crazy for not taking the up close spaces when they’re empty but she’d rather have her sure thing all the time than the good thing occasionally.

Driving to work she talks to her God, that one she finally came to know as Father. She is trying to learn to ask him daily for help. Even as a woman “of a certain age” she has come to understand how large a portion of herself is not grown up. She needs her Father. She needs to learn how to let him Father her. She’s working on it.

This drive to work is a leisurely one and daily she is thankful to not be on the interstate highway. Every day she drives south past the lake and then west through some of the older area of the City. The scenery switches from lovely to distressing as quickly as crossing a street; from one cultural expression to another. She loves it. She’s where she wants to be. Years ago they had lived in a suburb of the City. She loved it there. They gave up their house and lived in other places for a time. When it was time to come home her heart cried out to be in this City. Hub was agreed and so they came, a long, somewhat difficult journey in itself to get to the settling down place. Today this journey is still in its flow – there’s a house somewhere in the future.

The remote opens the gate and she turns into the parking lot of the nondescript building where she spends her days. Again she parks on the outer rim of the parking lot necessitating the need to pull out the umbrella on this rainy day. At this hour many spots are empty in the parking area under the building but she doesn’t like to park there. On a stormy day she’ll do it but not for a drizzle or even a steady rain. She makes sure she has on sturdy, solid shoes for rainy days.

The code is entered to go in the door, the elevator goes up and deposits her on the third floor of a two story building. The parking lot is the bottom floor. Codes and fenced parking lots are a premium here. This is part of downtown and people have wants and needs and too often, no boundaries. Another “small” thing to be thankful for. She could be working for a company where she parks in the garage down the street and walks a few blocks to work.

At her desk and it’s still dark outside. In an hour or so it will either stay dark because of clouds or clear off and let the sunshine in through the slit windows. She misses the sun but this is an improvement over her first office. As much as she liked being tucked away in that back corner she prefers sunshine and people. After all, she is a social person - and a sun lover.

And again the irony of this job hits her as she looks around the desk wondering “what about that work”? The job is not busy. Most days there is enough but some days it provides her with only a few hours of work. This day it would seem that it will stop with one hour. Perhaps something will present itself along the way. Perhaps her hardest decision will be whether to take some personal time and leave early. Thankful she is however, to have a job right now. She has favor here and does well what she does. She cringes a little bit as she thinks about “looking” busy all day. The small amount of filing to be done isn’t going to help much and she’s already worked ahead.

But this is today and she meets it with resolve to simply be the best her she can be in it.