Today it was 3:33 am. Pat got up to get some water. By the time he got back to bed I was wide awake. “Don’t get up,” he said, a couple of times as he drifted off again.
I love this hour. While my coffee drips, I make a meditation cushion from a sweatshirt I left on the couch last night (our real meditation cushion, made by Pat a few years ago, is out at the cabin, waiting for the weekend). With my coffee beside me on the floor, I breathe, softening my head into a quiet place, happy to find that easier today than some mornings. After some perfect, unmeasured time, I begin my yoga practice. Today’s is slow and relaxed. Lots of hip openers. My own take on Yin yoga. By 5am, when our clock radio comes on, I could sink ships with my loose hips.
Some days it’s a bit later, some a bit earlier, but those early, early hours give me something I can’t find anytime else. The world is all mine then: dark, silent, obligation-free. My head is relaxed enough, this morning, that I don’t think of email or the theatre meeting I have after work tonight. I don’t think of the laundry I should have done last night.
All mine. This is the magic hour. The sanity hour. The hour that transforms the day. Pat does not find this hour magic, except for the fact that he and the dog can lie diagonally across the bed while I’m gone.
It makes me wonder whether you have a magic hour, and if you do, is it morning? Noon? Night? Why do you love it?
Thanks to yoga for a quiet we can come home to, and thanks to you for the conversation,
Kristin