It has all the prerequisites of a habitual morning but it is not. As much as I would like to slip into the comforting routine of the day, the imposed change in my morning habits reverses my plans. So far plans and habits were following the same course but this does not hold true anymore. Now I can neither make plans for the rest of the day nor recapture my old habits. I wake up and let myself be unconsciously attuned to this new state of inertia which may or may not breed hope for a better morning whose coming may or may not enter into my life’s picture.
The habitual, though more than usual subdued, noises from the people living around me remind me that there is a new schedule I have to abide by. Late breakfast, distance learning sessions for the children, cooking everyone’s favourite instead of going to work, early lunch, afternoon family walks by the sea or into the woods depending on mean mood levels and finally home return. Back into imagineless inactivity. Waiting for what is yet to come such as an ordinary morning without any self- or other-imposed constraints. How I yearn for this normal morning to come!
The two stacks of books divided into read and unread beckon me from as far as my night table into making a choice. I pick up one from the read ones only to place it next to my pillow. The old habit of engaging into bedside reading before falling into my night’s sleep has been replaced by a new one but not out of free will. The comfort of a known plot with known characters is like a promise for yet another morning identical to the preceding one. I can settle for what is given but will not risk summoning the unknown. At the break of dawn time will suffice for rereading what an early riser already knows. The succession of revisited morning habits. Old and new.
Angela Ypsilanti.
