Start Every Day Like This

In the midst of the chaos and insanity I see around me on a daily basis, this morning I saw two things that filled my morning with beauty and comfort.

As I drove toward St. Arbucks this morning in the blue light of dawn I could see, dominating the western sky, a Full Moon. There were just a few high and wispy clouds leaving the Full Moon to light up the sky unfettered.

The disk of light, reflecting from the as yet unrisen Sun, looked like a giant silver dollar flung into the air and frozen in flight.

The 250,000 miles between it and me seemed like it was so close that it was just down the street and that it could splash down into the moving waters of the Wabash River.

The quarter of a million miles struck me as doable. “I could drive there. It looks so close. Pack a lunch and we can picnic along the way.”

I found today’s Full Moon to be calming and comforting after listening to the early news. I imagined that from, “up there,” the Earth also looks lovely and calming. At least, that is what I’ve heard from those few of our species who have been there.

I know that I’ll never get the chance to make that comparison for myself, so this morning, in the now gathering light, I can look up and see the Moon. Our Moon. My Moon. Lighting my way down the street. Lighting my way to my other source of peace and comfort on this somewhat shaky planet.

It may sound trivial, and, to some, even rather foolish, but my first taste of coffee in the morning is unequaled by anything else in the day.

The sight of that Full Moon had me looking up, but my coffee brings my eyes back down – to the cup and, today, this scrap of paper and pen.

As the tart, unsweetened, liquid passes over my tongue and the mob of taste buds it taps my still sleepy heart and reminds me, as the Full Moon is fading in the brightening sky, that my day is calling for me to wake up and be about my errands and chores.

Most mornings I have iced coffee to start my day – for a very practical reason. It is easier to down a handful of pills with a cold drink than it is with a hot and steamy one.

I’ll sit in the corner and stare out the unintentionally stained glass windows here at St. Arbucks (The Patron Saint of Jittery People). I can still see the Full Moon, and I can feel the frantic energy of the people scurrying around me – and I am there alone. There may be as many as twenty people near me inside and a train of cars trying to get to the “Drive Thru” window before their Day Planners explode.

My coffee lets me be a tiny corner of calm in the middle of the frenzy. I am quite thankful for that.

Being able to put myself there – just me and my coffee – enables me to write, to think, to say a prayer or two, and, I think, to live a little longer.

A Full Moon and Coffee. I find that to be a most excellent way to start a day, this day. Any day. I just wish I could see that Full Moon up there every morning. I know that I can’t have that, except in my mind’s eye, but I do know that my coffee will help me to survive until the next time that giant, shining beauty returns.

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