Early morning and the sun's rising

I could probably have been in the cabin the past few days, but being out there in the cold for however many weeks I was got my hips to aching pretty bad. I’ve got a blanket and heater next to me just to start my day in the sunroom.

The fall back/spring ahead time change happened over the weekend and the whole sky is already light at quarter to seven. Low along the freeway fence it’s golden, and above it’s already that pigment-less winter white. It’s pretty though. One of the storm windows in here is still open a crack and that window is steamy. Only one window has plastic taped over it to decrease the drafts. It’s the one that sits behind my desk. It’s there because it went up last winter and I never took it down. What the heck – I was in the cabin all summer.

I thought briefly this morning – who cares what the sky looks like at six or seven? Why do you write about this stuff?

It took me a long time to get “writing for a reader” out of my head. It’s hard to say why that doesn’t work for me. It seems to work so well for other people.

I woke up with these ideas of things to write about today:
giving up habits…later,
the yard light, and
doing what’s easy.

I trust morning thoughts so I’ll give capturing what it was that brought them to mind a quick whirl.

Oh man, the sun is topping the fence just now and she’s bright orange. She’s sent a ray over my frosted window and I swear it’s already creating a V of moisture relief. The rest of the window is pink.

Bad Habits

I don’t admit to my bad habits in public or on paper anymore. I used to do it freely. Lately, I’ve seen the effects of “big brother”…newly named technology. I don’t have anything that big to hide, but when I saw in the past few months what employers can ask and claim the rights to, it freaked me out a little, especially that the same employer grew more invasive in less than a year. Then my daughter went to rent an apartment – not a fancy, exclusive kind of apartment, but an affordable six-plex on an average street. Her potential landlord got a list of her every traffic violation and it seemed, as he read the list to her over the phone, every trouble she’d ever had, no matter how small, or how long ago.

At the corporate job I briefly held, a young guy talked of his second job bartending and another asked why he didn’t put it on FaceBook. The kid said he wouldn’t want a potential employer to see it. Think about it – all these kids with lives like open doors – and all the potential employers peaking in.

But anyway, when I woke up thinking about how I want to quit my bad habits “later,” I realized how little good it does me – that “future” intention. It’s an idea of betterment, not something I want to do. If there was more to it than that, I’ve lost it.

The Yard Light

The yard light is one of those things that makes the view from the sunroom different from the view from the cabin. It’s a large, automatic light, like those that line the freeway. It was here when we moved in and I can imagine the old owner lobbying for it, afraid of the dark woods behind the house. It can still be seen from the cabin, but it’s not intrusive. I’ve spent whole seasons out there trying to get a bead on when it comes on. Same time every day, or when the day grows light? Point is, it’s obscure enough that I don’t notice.

We sit at the edge of town – across the freeway the city limits change. We’re on a rise. When I look out, as unpleasant as the view of a freeway fence might seem, all that I see over it is horizon. No roof tops, no neighbors, no anything – just sky. It’s pretty cool actually. But in the yard, the light kind of messes up the observation of the dark, and so it’s one of those things that I wonder about. Could I get it turned off? And then, when I think of the hassle of trying to do that (assuming with good evidence that it would be a hassle), I don’t, and I even question if it would be for the best. Maybe it’s better to have the light…if not for me…in general.

Doing What’s Easy

So then we come to doing what’s easy. It fits with the other two ideas but it’s been pressing on me the last few days. I have these blogs because they’re easy. I’ve been working on a third because it seems an easy way to share in a way more related to my books. It doesn’t have that sense of ease, though. I feel as if, since no one else may care when the sun rises in Minnesota, I can’t write about it.

Sun and window are yellow now. All this change in a half hour. Who can wonder why I love morning?

Anne Lamott says that you can’t write with your parents looking over your shoulder – you especially can’t go into the dark rooms you need to go into. When her students ask her why they need to go into those rooms, she tells them “Because it’s in our nature to want the truth.” It’s not so strange that we can’t have our parents looking over our shoulder and get there, but it feels strange to apply the same idea to readers – that you can’t worry about them, or censor yourself over what they might not find interesting. As if you can know anyway.

Back when I was working at my corporate desk and listening to spiritual radio to keep my sanity, I compiled a mound of post-it-notes with scribbled quotes. They’re still floating around. One, that I think was from Carolyn Myss, says, “Faith is doing what is difficult as if it is easy.” Hmmm.

I’m sorry, but I can’t apply that definition of faith to the giving up of bad habits. That’s probably a flaw in my character. But if I apply it to writing by seeing what is really difficult as going into those dark rooms, or getting rid of censors, or forgetting about doing anything for benefit or betterment...then it just might work.

Can I write about the big ideas within my books with ease? Can I write as an invitation to the readers I already have without writing leaden or in an obligatory way? Without wondering what they want to hear from me? Without separating the book wisdom from life wisdom (or from life crap…whatever the case may be)?

These things make it obvious where freedom comes from and who keeps it from me – me. No one else can truly censor me. Yet there’s no denying that there are some places where we feel more ease than others and it’s not all bad to stick with them until we get the hang of it. That’s my idea anyway.

That and having the faith to care about the sun’s rising.