i been doin this thing where i get up at 5AM. it’s not the kind of getting up i used to do with an alarm, nor is it the kind after i’ve finally gotten the chance to sleep til i’m done sleeping. Both of those awakes are from an old world. In this new world i get up at 5AM cuz my body said it didn’t want to sleep anymore.

i make breakfast for me and the cat and brew my perfect cup, tidying around the kitchen as i go along. i will drink my coffee while i have a smoke in the sunshine w the birds, which is lovely af and my favorite. It’s too early for them to be bathing but by the time i get out there they’ve been singing for several hours. The noise is only them, and the sun has been pretty consistent and gracious in joining me often.

Going inside, i will turn on my latest favorite “chill” playlist. Awake now but groggy cuz it’s still early and now i’m stoned, i lie down. The cat usually joins me, which is also perfect. Then i settle in to take deep breaths until i find myself in that weird space between awake and dreaming when your thoughts are kind of like listening to Danish for the first time as a native English speaker. Clarity feels close but is, in reality, quite far away. But clarity isn’t why i’m doing this. Instead of forcing my thoughts to disappear, i let my brain off leash in a controlled environment: chill tunes drift around while my imagination, jealousies, paranoia, obsessions, dreams, optimisms, criticisms, and all their accompaniments just run amuck. These fuckers need space to roam, so this is what i give them.

i chill there hard for what feels like hours, all of my brilliance and idiocy spinning and twirling to the beats of foreign composers toeing the line of “coffee shop chic” so that i can never be completely bored, or entranced. The mess of my brain is a house party starting slowly like maybe it won’t work out then, as guests arrive, building to epic shades of disaster before pulling back cuz it’s almost dawn and we’re getting sleepy now anyway. Instead of regret and squinted eyes though, the end of this rager feels like clouds parting. The clear sky in wait, all the partygoers plum tuckered out.

This is a thing i do now, and it’s my favorite way to start a morning. My brain is full of nonsense that needs to breathe. From 5 to 8AM, i “meditate” my own way. For the rest of the day? My brain cooperates.