East, Before the Sun Shows | Peony Magazine
The house wakes up like a cat. First one eye opens, then the other. You can hear the radiators making a lot of noise as they get hot. The light in the kitchen is really yellow. I am standing there wearing wool socks. I want the kettle to work correctly. I want the kettle to remember that it is supposed to boil water. My old enamel cup has a chip in it from when I moved in. I got this chip on moving day. I never got around to fixing it. In January, you start to notice all the problems with everything—the house, the kettle, and the cup. Everything seems to have a lot of issues in January.
No one cheers for this hour. I do not feel new. I am still the person who slept with my phone on my pillow and neglected to respond to an email, and the calendar is just a piece of paper placed on top of yesterday’s mess. It isn’t easy to open the oat container’s cover. Halfway through, the drawer containing the spoons becomes stuck. It’s chilly on the floor. In my life, fresh beginnings look like this. They are ordinary and not exciting, just a lot of small decisions that the fresh starts do not make a big deal about. The fresh starts are just a string of tiny choices that would never be popular. The fresh starts are just that, a lot of little things.
I look out the window that faces east because my father did the thing. He did not do this because he thought it was magical or anything like that. My father just looked up to check the weather. He got into the habit of doing this while working on a fishing boat for a couple of seasons. Every morning, he would stand in the doorway with a cup of coffee. Try to figure out whether it would rain or if the wind would be nice and clean. My father would say, “Give it an hour”. I learned to be patient from hearing him say that. It was not a guarantee that anything would happen. It was something to do.
January is here. I need to be patient with everything. The salt from the road is on my boots. My laundry takes forever to dry, and it never gets dry by the time I wash it. My body feels really slow, like it is twenty minutes behind.
People say you can change who you are and remake yourself, as if it’s exciting. For me, it is not like that. I start things quietly and early in the morning. Sometimes I even start the day with the night’s dishes still sitting on the rack drying in the air.
I am learning that this is okay. Going east is not about winning or being the best; it is about turning your face to the light and letting it shine on you. East is about facing the light that is coming your way and letting it find you.
Since those are the things that truly occur, I take care of them first. In my notebook, I scribble three lines. Before I have coffee, I have a cup of water. I respond to the email I have been dreading with five short words and a period.
Years ago, when I quit drinking, the idea of change looked like that, too. It didn’t appear very interesting. It all came down to the obstinate logistics. I would stay away from the bar. My debit card would be left at home. Before I reached the off-ramp, where my former drinking habit resided, I would text a buddy. Don’t say too much—no loud sounds. Said, there are many things that people do when they refuse and attempt to change. This happens a time before anyone can see that something is different. The water in a river keeps moving even when it is covered in ice.
It appears to be slowly waking up outside the block. At the corner, the bus is waiting. It sounds worn out. A rewards card is being used to remove ice from someone’s windshield. A little youngster with a puff coat is staring at his mittens as though he doesn’t like them. The baker is holding the door open with a bucket of flour, and warm air is escaping from the bakery. It smells like yeast and butter. It feels nice. The sky above the row houses is changing from gray to a light brown, like the early morning. The bus is still waiting at the corner, the baker is still outside, the young kid is still examining the mittens, and the entire street is filled with the aroma of the bakery. You won’t even notice this location if you stroll by. I came very close to doing that myself.
I keep thinking about how we’re told to sprint out of the gate to set loud goals and scare our bad habits into obedience. That may work for some people. My body knows better than to dash on ice. I need a starting point, a posture, more than a plan for my life. I will face east. I will breathe. I will do one thing and then another patient thing. The goal-setting and loud plans do not work for me. I need a patient start to my day, my week, my life. I will focus on my posture and breathing, and take things one step at a time. I will do one thing, and then I will do another patient thing. That is how I will start my day; that is how I will begin my life: with patience and a slow, steady pace, I will face east. I will breathe. I will be patient.
If you think of the year as a compass, the eastern part is what you feel before you actually see it. The north part is like all the lists and budgets, it is like that voice that takes my phone and puts it away in a drawer. The south part is like a pot of soup, and the person who laughs at the right time when I am telling a story. The west part is knowing when to let something come to an end. The east part happens when it is not very bright. While the light is toward the door, it is the one that leads to a momentous decision, something that might prompt looking further. It’s about the east and what it represents to me; it’s about sensing things before you see them.
When the kettle clicks, I notice a line over the roofs. My boots are sitting by the door with rings of salt around them like they are growing roots or something. Nevertheless, I put them on. Go outside and breathe in the city air. It’s chilly outside. It is purifying me from the inside out. My city doesn’t appear flawless. A dog is standing in the exact spot where salty snow is, seems faithful, while garbage bags are placed over the curb. Because my city doesn’t strive to be something it’s not, I appreciate it more.
I walk down the block, the one with the mural that has been half-finished for months. The mural has an athlete’s arm and a spray of stars. Then there is the gray wall where the rest of the mural is supposed to go. This mural reminds me that work can stop for a bit and still be work. The mural can look ugly for a while. A good start to something sometimes looks like a mess, with scaffolding and drop cloths scattered about. The mural is an example of this. It is the mural that I am talking about.
I really wanted a noticeable change, like the ones you see in the movies, where everything is different after that one moment. I was looking forward to the day when I would transform into a different person and feel like the beginning of a narrative. That was not how life operated. Instead, I had mornings like these, where the difference was minimal rather than significant and startling. To remember to soak the beans, I put on a hat, write something that isn’t very good yet, and prepare a bowl. Something inside my chest starts to feel a little better, just a little bit at a time. The change in life, like the beans, needs time to soak in, and it happens slowly.
When I come back to this moment, the sky has turned pink in one line. It is not what people usually think of; it is not the kind of thing you see on a postcard. The sky is being honest with me. It is showing me the type of light that reminds me of what happened. Inside my house, the heaters are making noise. My paper is waiting for me to write. I sit down because this is how I start my morning. I am not being brave or wise all of a sudden. This is the time of day when I can be the person I want to be. In the morning, I try to be a person. The sky is beautiful, and the light is nice. It’s pretty silent. These factors enable me to become the person I aspire to be. When I’m outside in the morning with the sky, light, and silence, I strive to be the person I keep saying I want to be.
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