A Freshly Made Mind

I’m one of those crazy ladies who make their beds each morning. Don’t worry, this isn’t one of those guilt pieces persuading you to make your bed neatly every day.

I just wake up in a cloud of confusion and seem to stay there long into my day if I don’t follow a specific routine. I pad down the stairs and grasp at one of my faithful coffee cups–most, gifts from my treasure of former students who understand my love of coffee. Through blurry eyes, I mechanically brew a cup of the amazing elixir. I know the coffee will be ready for me after plodding to the restroom and back. Finally, leaning back in my glider rocker with feet up and eyes barely open, I pour life into my soul.

The end of cup one moves me faster, and after the little one has unloaded about 3,ooo of his words for the day on me in rapid fire, his lunch sits by the door waiting for Papa, and his little body adorns his Superman shirt complete with cape–the one he insists on wearing at least once, if not twice, per week–I can finally move through the upstairs, making beds and tossing the day’s laundry down the shoot–AKA stairwell.

Some days, I stand at my bedroom door and admire the tidiness before heading back down for that second glorious vessel of coffee and attack my day.

Somehow that tidy room does as much for my state of mind as those two cups of coffee. It sets my mind toward accomplishing something and gives order to my day and thinking.

Once that bed no longer pleads me to crawl back in, I’m ready for a short devotional–all my mind can handle that early–and know I’ll come back during a break in my day for more spiritual sustenance. At this point my body has had its kick start; my mind and soul will get their turn.

I know my day has officially begun, and I can tackle the papers I grade, classes I teach, meals I cook, and possessions I dust with the mental energy required.

On second thought, maybe this is one of those guilt pieces persuading you to make your bed every day, or at least to find that routine that sets your day aright and calibrates your mind and body for a day full of potential.

…and that’s the view from My Front Porch.