It’s 7:12 AM and I just glanced at my watch to note the time so I can return to my brewing coffee in ten minutes and finally pour. Many mornings follow the same pattern. I set an alarm to wake up early and I hit snooze a few times. It’s chilly and I will need to successfully and quietly find socks and a sweater without disturbing the kids (one who has inevitably found his way into our bed), because if these kids are disturbed and wake up, what is even the point of getting up early?

I wake to write, to site in a few quiet moments, to listen and to meditate with the backdrop of the Pacific surf. Perhaps to read, to be inspired by the words of others. But I am getting ahead of myself as I still have to make it out of this warm bed, with journal and layers in hand, to the kitchen where I have everything set up to brew my coffee.

Light stove. Boil water. Pour over grinds. Stir and let sit, holding my breath with every unwelcome plink, shuffle, or shift that could ruin my hope for my cup of coffee and a minute of solitude. I wait ten minutes. Like washing dishes, like cooking a meal — it all takes longer. More effort, more forethought, more time. But as I wait, I hear geese. I hear crashing waves. I see the billowy Humboldt fog blanket our space.

The table where I sit is covered in “bookland” (a built environment made completely out of construction paper, designed and executed on an indoor rainy day), a few lego creations, and a rusty crab trap filled with shells, feathers, snakeskin, and sweetgrass braided by Gullah. I don’t dare scoot the things around for fear of waking a sleeping babe.

The geese, migrating to warmer climates as they do annually, continue to honk. My son will seek them out later today, no doubt. We’ll come home sandy. We’ll come home wet from the mid-thigh down, and hang our damp things which are sure to remain damp until we see the sun again.

The coffee is ready and I move slowly and deliberately to pour a steaming cup. My mouth waters. I will savor this unlike any automatically brewed cup of coffee I have had or will ever have. There’s no bottomless to it. I have just this one. And now it is hot and the kids continue to sleep. What is more beautiful — those geese, that fog, the hum of the waves, or their sighs, mumbles, and snores as they make their own way through the space between awake and alseep?

And with that, my time has come, I must put my things down and shift my attention to the incoming snuggles, the immediate need for food, and the preparations necessary to tackle before communing with geese and waves.

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