Morning

"Not knowing when the dawn will come,
I open every door..."  -E.D.

After the sun sets, I shut the drapes--we have this picture window that opens onto the day's end and sends it straight across the field, under my pin oak, into my living room and down through my throat, a sudden inhalation of wonder.  "Today was good.  Let me show you how good."

Seven miles down, I can see the grain elevators in Utica, the same flashing red and white antennas my mom saw at 16 in a farmhouse that has since been torn down just a mile down from where I live now.  This is a sacred spot for me, I think.   And for her.  One day I will write about the dust storm that spread itself across every inch of mom's house and Grandma wanted to move, but mom was in love with a farmboy down the road (Mike, who she is now married to)--so she didn't sleep that night, cleaning every surface so they could stay just a little longer in this strange, flat land where she walked barefoot down the road to meet him.

And right now, this song is saving my heart.  "Forget about the past, and I will try to make things right..."   Open the door.   The wind whips clean through, taking the dust with her.

After I have read and written and prayed, I turn out the lights and open the drapes again, inviting the white fluorescence of the shop lights to spread their shadows that will confuse Nora in the night if she wakes.  And when the light comes slow in the morning, I feel the soft nudge of someone calling me into the world to work and play and suffer and lean.   There is nothing as hopeless to me, other than a room that remains unlit after the sun has set, than a room that remains dark after the sun has risen.

I open every door, all the doors, and the light comes slowly back to my fingers digging through the dust.