On Returning To Rest
In the dark, I make my way from bedside to kitchen, minding the steps that creek, walking awkwardly down the edges of the staircase, praying under my breath that my movement will go undetected, so that my time alone will be uninterrupted. The coffee machine had whirled into action at 4:15AM, I’d heard its grinding in my dream, except that part was real. If it had disturbed anyone else in the house, they weren’t roused the way I am by its workings. This is grace, as I went to bed only hours ago, with the expectation of having the quiet morning hours to myself. Reaching into the cabinet, I select one of my favorite mugs—the hand-thrown one I got on retreat in the Texas low country some years back. When I hold it, I remember the slow rhythm of those days hidden in the valley. I remember the quiet trickle of the emerald green river that meandered beside the main house. I remembered the way that space had opened to me, swallowing me up, hiding me from the ever-reaching, squeezing arms of technology always buzzing in my hand, in my pocket. There’s no cell service out here, they’d told me on arrival. I’d grinned and welcomed it, stuffing my phone into the bowels of my overnight bag.
In my study upstairs, down the hall from my sleeping children, I sit at my desk, mug in hand, coffee steaming into my face, and light the pink candle that sits centered below my monitor. This is a ritual. A rhythm. I call this desk an altar and while I don’t mean it to sound pious, I know it may ring out that way. This is where I work, and also, when I come in a certain frame of mind, it’s where I rest too.