Reasons to get up in the morning

 All I ever expected out of daybreak was a warm cup of coffee, real food to eat, some plants to water and a friend to talk to. I suppose, I have always found reasons to live for those quiet hours before I am tasked with the rest of a day. I don't even mind watching the snow fall across the peaks and valleys of a town or a life. When it is morning, the world appears sweet before me, like a honeybee has buzzed by and all I can do is be glad that I am alive to see it happen. It should be addressed though, I am not really a morning person, as in I don't necessarily wait for mornings to come or head to bed at decent hours so I can watch the sun rise, but when I am there, by accident or purpose, it is a nice place to be.

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February was cold, colder than how I remember last year's February, but I am still breathing, and I know there are worse things to wonder about than how dreary the sky's mood. I am here, in my bedroom, with the light of a candle casting shadows against the white paint of a wall and C is strumming a silver stringed guitar while I take turns between the space and delete key. I swear that is what being a writer is, from January to December, from June to May, a whole lot of words being erased only to reveal what you wanted to say all along. Sometimes, if the writer is lucky, what ends up being written is far more than what you wanted to say, as if the words are being written by somebody else and you just happen to be the one pushing a pen onto paper or letters to a keyboard. What comes to be in those sentences is similar to a shovel being used to dig yourself out of a hole, a welcome home, the same way a mother whispers in your ear even when she is not there, a way of being that is beyond the art of daily living.

What some don't realize is that writers aren't always writing for the audience, for you, or for the applause. Same goes for humans of any kind. We live and we do these things because they give us a reason to survive winter - both winters so real you can watch your cheeks turn rosy and imagined winters where the frost is less of a product of seasonal change and more of a mood you can't seem to shake. These words, these songs, these paintings, these pots of tea, these however you choose to spend your days, they are lighthouses and maps to the wavering sea boats we're put in the day we are born. So, although February is cold and grim, there will always be reasons for us get up in the morning. One of them is for art, to make the world a less mean place. Another is for you, out of every time a terrible misfortune could have struck down and left your name in the evening news, you're still here.

Outfit details: thrifted blouse & dress, journal & beret gift

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