My Morning Routine

9 (tiny) things, a personal primer on starting the day.

I am a morning person. I am not exactly sure when this shift happened, but if you asked my own mother if she ever thought I would become a morning person, she would respond with a very cool + confident, No fucking way.

My sister was always the super-duper early bird in our family (she still is, rising most days at 4:30 a.m.), but over the last decade or so, I have begun to understand the importance of sanctifying or ie: owning the early hours of Every Single Day. No matter what.

That is home to me, my morning routine. The place where I ritualize the most mundane things like making coffee and putting on a cherry tinted lip balm. Where I open my journal, re-read some disorder-defining texts, get my head on straight. I wish I was a meditator (maybe someday), but in place of that, I walk. As a morning walker—I know a lot of you are, too—my 30 minutes outside of my space are also part of this routine, but during winter when it’s 30 degrees outside or slushy or just too dark to navigate the sidewalks with verve, I rely on my own series of very ordinary “stretches” at home even more.

I was listening to this very good conversation yesterday between Krista Tippett and Nick Cave, and she brought up something he’d said in his book about when he’s writing an album: “You have to be patient and alert to the little miracles nestled in the ordinary.” I think those 60 or so minutes before my family gets up feel a lot like that to me. A chance to be patient, alert, occasionally communing with a little miracle.

Maybe it was when my life got much busier. More crowded. Less about me and more about everyone else who needed something from me. Urgently. I no longer felt like a person with ideas and feelings and instincts rather than a body following a pre-programmed punch list of expectations that never seemed to end. I got lost. I got sad. I got anxious. I hated that there was never any room for surprises, for something to just transpire out of the blue…divine intervention.

But then, slowly, over time, I began to wake up earlier. Not much, maybe just a half-hour before I usually would. To crack open my journal. To sit with coffee. To appreciate, even honor my home and space privately. To look at my calendar and wonder longingly if one of the 10 or so things stacked there might cancel leaving me with an unexpected window to do…anything else.

I am now in my 50s with a five year-old, doing my best to make a living as a writer and a person with decent, original ideas who also happens to be building a small house three hours away. A house that has become like my other kid, you know, away in an expensive boarding school, the kid I’m constantly getting calls/updates about because she’s always up to some shenanigans.

Because of ALL of this (and you have your own version of what THIS is), mornings are precious. They can literally be the only chance we have to reprogram/recharge our minds and intentions (i.e: hopes/dreams) for the day ahead. Being awake in this quieter, stiller place offers a rare moment to orient ourselves in our lives + spaces, acknowledging the active role we play in making both really mean something. When I wake up early, now at my chosen time of 5:30, I’m showing up…even when I don’t really want to. Not just for everyone who needs something from me, but for myself, too. Because even though I’m where I am in my life, I still have dreams…just a lot less time to make them happen.

And, well, waking up earlier somehow gives us more of it…time, that is. Or maybe it just allows us to appreciate it, feel it, and just make better use of it. My routine isn’t anything fancy or complicated, just a pattern of moves that’s become second-nature…and never, ever feels like work. It just feels like, oh YES, another chance to make today a tiny bit fantastic. So, here goes…

1. The night before: Everything I do before bed is a critical part of waking up in the right state of mind. Loading the dishwasher, setting up the coffee (I am psychotic about this!), wiping down the counter with my favorite cleaner. I know lots of highly productive people who can go to bed with a sink full of dishes and sleep like a baby. I am not one of them. So, I make sure the first rooms that I use in the morning—the kitchen and the bathroom—are fairly clean and organized and ready/waiting for me.

2. The wake-up: I head right to the bathroom to scrape my tongue (does anyone else do this?), brush my teeth with water (toothpaste ruins my coffee, so that’s a no-no until later), splash cold water on my face and give my scalp a quick massage with my fingers. I started doing this to smooth out my hair when it was shorter sans brush, but then began to notice it felt good, so I kept doing it. Sort of this, Hey, good morning! act of kindness that also seems to wake up my brain. I have a friend who does a skin brush in the morning, which is more vigorous but tempting on a morning when you really need a hand getting your shit together. And since my partner is sleeping, I don’t make the bed till later when everyone is awake. So, I don’t technically include that in my personal Morning Routine, but I do that every morning just the same (I’m not sure what would happen if I didn’t, but I don’t ever wanna know).