pre-dawn

Both the most magical and terrifying of times. I often wake up scared, at 4.30am, mind churning with all I didn't get done the day before, project deadlines looming, what I'm behind on, what I don't know how to handle. And bigger fears: Does any of it matter anyway? Is that ache in my jaw an incipient root canal? What's going to happen as my parents get older and we're all thousands of miles away?

I've found that if I get myself out of bed, dive right into the piece of work I'm most scared of, before my mind has woken up enough to resist it, it morphs from monster into malleable challenge. Then the first morning light trickles into the kitchen. I go through the house and draw all the curtains open, take a cup of herbal tea out onto the back porch and watch the sun rise. At that moment, everything I am most grateful for - the health and wellbeing of those I love, the privilege of doing work I love, the wealth of tools to do it with, rises around me, like dew off the grass, and I am utterly delighted that I'm not still in bed.

This morning, my mind was unafraid and happy at 4.30am. My friend Punam arrived from London yesterday, to stay for two weeks. The joy of having her here makes me much more motivated and confident about blitzing through the work, so I can have time to play with her.