Mornings Here

I'm an apologetic smoker. Most weekdays I'm up by 6:00 and sitting on my back patio--coffee and smoke--by 6:30. Every morning around 7:45 a phone rings from a nearby condo. It's a high but soft digital ring--one long pulse and a longer pause. Usually whoever is at the receiving end picks it up after one ring. They anticipate the call. At 8:00 the woman that drives the early 80's-model BMW in the parking space next to mine leaves for wherever she goes--probably for work, but I can't be certain. (She won't respond when I say hello. The man she lives with does, but it's clear in the way he responds that he's only acting out a social politic for my sake.) A few months ago her car had a loose belt that whined for 30 seconds every time the car started. If I'd slept late, the car woke me.

I leave for work at different hours. My neighbors, however, participate in more structured lives. They receive daily phone calls at exact times, leave for work at the same routine moment. I imagine their mornings are clock-driven, exact moments for breakfasts of cereal and hot showers, alarms and goodbye kisses. And even for all of that, the morning that they walk out into is every day a different morning--the sun rising earlier or later depending on the season and the weather in flux.

I set my watch by their routines. The phone rings, and I look at the clock to verify the time.

Being aware of my neighbors' routines tricks in me the old questions about purpose. My friend Chris has said that it's all in the interpersonal relationships--by "it" he means all of it. He's Zen Buddhist, and serious enough at it to wake at four every morning. He leaves his home each morning by 4:40 and drives the twenty minutes into town for 5:00 meditation, which lasts one hour. I've always wondered if he has a cup of coffee before he leaves to meditate.

I started this post at 8:59. I'll leave in ten minutes for work. The temperature today will climb above 100 degrees. I'll probably get home before it's dark. A lot will happen in between that will seem incredibly real.