Every Morning
if time moved like memories and not like rivers
This morning, I woke in the dark, inched my body away from the warmth of my husband’s, climbed quietly over a sleeping four-year-old, and moved into the kitchen, where I am now sitting at the table, scribbling the words that would not let me sleep. Water is warming in the kettle, and the hum of the bread machine is a happy little song about breakfast, already made. I am the thinking about the significance of this day. The one where I wake and find myself exactly here—having toast and tea at this blessed table, early in the morning, the woman who has become a wife of two decades, the mother of eight children with another little life growing inside my womb.
Time flows like a river, resolved to move in one direction, relentlessly pressing itself farther and farther into the current that will carry it into the sea. And so this day has arrived. But if time moved differently—if it flowed like memory, able to permeate the banks of day and year, if there were no words like before and after, but only the fluid structure of remembrance to hold the days together, today could be any of the 15,000 mornings of my life so far, and the words could tell a story like this:
This morning, I woke alone with a biting TMJ headache, my brain running through biology facts for an 8:00 a.m. test, and the beginnings of my first broken heart. In between mental recitations of the definition of DNA and RNA, I could feel the change happening down to the cellular level of my body: The man I loved didn’t want to love me.
***
This morning, I woke early, got up, poured myself a glass of orange juice, plopped down on the couch in my pjs, and watched Saturday cartoons while cutting out paper dolls. My brothers and sisters are still asleep.
***
This morning, I tiptoed out of my room and into the kitchen to decorate the birthday table. It is my son’s fourth birthday. I tied bright green balloons to his chair.
***
This morning I woke up in my childhood room for the last time. I couldn’t sleep. I got dressed, grabbed my guitar and journal, and walked out to my Daddy’s garden, looking at the clouds. Is it going to rain on my wedding day? We almost missed this, I think. We almost said goodbye forever. By the grace of God, the day has finally arrived. And after years of saying I don’t know, we are finally ready to say I do.
***
This morning I am wide awake. I didn’t sleep all night. I am still trying to process what just happened to me. In my arms is a beautiful, sleeping baby. Everything about her is perfect and new. My husband knows exactly what to do. I am desperate for rest and startled at the one sentence that keeps hitting me, over and over like a tidal wave: I can never do this again.
***
This morning is a Saturday. My favorite day of the week. We slept in together, and now I am smelling freshly-brewed coffee and making peanut-butter toast. I’m waiting at the table for my husband to shower, and then we will eat and talk about the day. Will we go out? Will we stay in? There are no plans. Nothing pressing. No essays to write, no critiques to prepare for, no set-lists to make. The schedule is a big space of quiet possibility. I think we should just stay home.
***
This morning I looked in the hospital mirror and saw my happy face looking back at me. Relief in every line. My body, yesterday swollen with a baby that wanted out, surprised me. I looked young and healthy. I was walking around minutes after the birth, as if I hadn’t just traveled as close to death as a healthy person can go and come back to tell the story. On my face was the joy of knowing I did the thing I knew, deep down in my heart, I was created to do. I washed my face and smiling, walked into the adjacent room where my husband slept with our newest baby on his chest.
***
This morning, I woke at 5 a.m., sandwiched between a two-year-old and a four-year-old, hearing, from the opposite end of the bed, my husband’s gentle breathing. I eased out of the covers, careful not to wake the sleeping boys, lest I lose that holy stretch of silence I can’t find anywhere else in my life. I walked into the kitchen, where I am making myself a pot of tea. I write words in a journal that no one will read. I pray in ink and tears. I pour out my heart to God who has already seen this day, and every day that has been, and every day that will be. There are so many questions still to be answered. The winding river of my life is moving, day by day to the sea, where time is at the full. God is already there, churning up the great waters of the deep, all the thunder and drumming of waves singing the song of his faithful mercies. They are new every morning.
From the Family:
Randy and Heidi made this little video last week to drum up some new students. (Randy may be a mad-scientist-musician by night, but he’s a mild-mannered music teacher by day…) I love hearing Heidi play the Irish whistle. Hope you do, too!
From the Podcast:
This is the story of my life as a creative soul–going all the way back to my childhood, my teenage years, the early years of college and marriage, and then into the wonderful and difficult and all-consuming seasons of motherhood (15 years and 8 children into it..). I share the things I truly needed as a creative child, teen, and adult, as well as ways I have learned to create rhythms in my life as a mother to make sure that these needs are met in my life. Tending to this part of myself is essential for me to be the woman, wife, and mother God has created me to be. I recorded this with mothers in mind, especially mothers with small children who do not see how they will ever recover the mental space that is necessary to process life and make creative work. I hope it will also be an encouragement and a help to mothers who are raising creative children. Thanks for listening!
My new book is now available on amazon or wherever you buy books online. If you’d like a signed copy, you can buy it directly from my website shop, and I will happily pack it up and send it to you.
Thanks so much for being here! It means so much to me. If you liked this week’s letter, would you share it with a friend?
Sending much love and the thrill of a coming October,
Mackenzie