The Beginning

Hurrying back, I grab a notebook from under my bedside table and slip into bed. I prop one pillow against the wall for back support, leaf through my notebook until I find the next blank page, and begin scribbling away. Sometimes I amuse myself with the thought that my mother is doing the same thing at that moment, writing away in the predawn stillness, but then I remember that she is halfway across the world from me, sleeping peacefully as its only 11:30 at night. But after all, it was my mother who taught me to do this in the first place. I write until I fill up two pages, front and back, which usually takes me a good thirty to forty minutes. By this time most of the rest of the house is awake, and I can make a little more noise.

I go to the bathroom, a different room than the toilette, to slip out my retainer, and hurry back into my room to make my bed. This involves pushing the bed back against the wall to make some floor space for yoga. The beds in France seem short for some reason, and the pillows are huge. This leaves tall people with huge feet like me the option of either having the pillow all mashed up against the wall, or having my feet hang irritatingly over the edge of the bed. Being not only tall but smart, however, has made me realize that if I pull the bed away from the wall part of the pillow can dangle over the edge of the bed, instead of my feet, and the problem is solved.

So after my room is clean I roll out my cushy blue yoga mat on the floor, put my headphones on, and begin to do yoga to soft music. The morning poses I do are all either deep stretching or balancing poses. The soft music calms me, and at the end I spend a short amount of time in either the corpse or the lotus pose meditating.

My small room here becomes my sanctuary in the morning. The energy I build with my journaling an yoga builds up an makes my room feel warm and light. Like home. When I am finished and roll up my mat I usually feel a little reluctant to leave. When I open my door I fell my energy rush out, and as I walk to the kitchen for breakfast I pray that it puts itself to good use.

The practices of morning pages and morning yoga that I wrote about in the previous section are easy to do. They clear the mind and body and prepare it for another day. I find myself missing them strongly on the days I don�t do them. If you�d like to give one or both of these practices are try read the instructions below.