Every day I set my alarm at 5:00am. Some days I get out of bed on the dot. Other days I snooze it. 5:15. 5:30. By the time 5:45 hits, I groggily sit in my little corner spot to journal, slightly smacking myself on the head for not waking up earlier because then I don’t have much time left before I need to get ready for work.

Days when I’m not working is when I slack off. Sleep in a bit longer. Too long, in fact, that sometimes I miss my morning ritual altogether.

Today being a Sunday, I thought I could bank on Raven waking up late so I can do my thing late. And I did. Went to the toilet to pee, only to come back and find that surprise, surprise, somebody has taken my spot.

“Mama, why do you like to write when you wake up?”

To be honest, I don’t know. And it’s not even because of the quiet and solitude of the early morning hours because God knows given the chance, I would just as easily slink back into the warm comfort of my bed and sleep the sunrise away. The appreciation for the quiet solitude came later, after I sort of got into the habit of doing it pretty much for about a year now.

My morning journals possess the clarity of fools. I just write whatever comes to mind. In fact, I bought this 10-minute hourglass timer because I wanted to do the whole stream-of-consciousness writing where you write down everything and anything that you think of, not stopping for even a second. You just go with the flow. And if you stumble on a blockage, hell, you write that, too. Write that you don’t know what to write.

It’s a pretty cool exercise, but one I don’t exactly practice every day. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I end up just staring at the candlelight, sipping hot water that I had boiled the night before which I store in my trusty hot pink Zojirushi thermos. One of my most useful Amazon impulse purchases, to date.

I don’t know if I’m just imagining it but my morning ritual sets the tone of my day. Except for that one time I drew The Tower and I was like, Oh shit, is something bad going to happen to me today? Or those times I pulled Death, although I like the meaning of the death card in the tarot so it didn’t really freak me out as much as The Tower did.

So, yeah, I reckon I’m gonna keep doing my morning ritual for as long as I’m capable of doing it. Not even winter is stopping me. My oodie has got that covered.

*Raven at 5 years old