I am not a morning person. Never have been, not sure I ever will be. At least by choice. But quite often lately I am a morning person because my son forces me to be one. It gives me time alone with him, which is nice. And we see all sorts of things I'd miss if I were asleep. For instance this morning he spotted a hummingbird on the fuschia plant, the first we've seen in weeks. And we saw dozens of tiny birds (finches?) flying in waves from one tree to another, cheerfully twittering as they flew. We also got to see "our" squirrels out busily gathering food and I chased off a rogue cat who was harassing one squirrel. If I hadn't been awake, that rotten cat might have gotten dangerously close to our little puffy-tailed buddy.
Or worse, far worse, the idiotic blue jays woke me up AGAIN far earlier than my boy did. I went outside in my pajamas to chase them off the roof and got to feel the cool morning mist on my skin. After the days and days of dryness we've had, the feeling was almost indescribable. While I cannot be grateful to those idiotic birds for disturbing my rest, I am grateful for the coolness I felt.
I keep reading about the benefits of meditation and most of the examples I've read, the person meditates in the morning, before the rest of the house is awake. That is also a good time to exercise, to get it done and out of the way. But I still can't bring myself to set an alarm and get up any earlier than my kid alarm goes off. Often that is too early for me! Maybe someday. I wonder, though, if being up early, paying attention to nature, training my eyes to new flower buds and my ears to squirrels jumping from branch to branch or the birds making music in the trees, maybe that is almost like meditation. Turning off the endlessly looping to-do list in my head and tuning into the world around me. For now, it is as close to meditation as I am going to get.
