Morning

 

I think my body is getting used to waking up early.

I woke up 15 minutes before my alarm went off this morning.

And in the dark, I decided to do what I started doing I think during my surgery rotation, when I was dreading my days.

Instead of letting my mind wander to the fact that I was getting up when it was dark out, that I didn't want to go to the hospital, that I have a 24 hour shift on Saturday coming up...blah blah blah.

I just decided to really savor the moment I was in.

I was rested, I was safe, I was warm and cozy in bed, I really felt the air moving in and out of my lungs as my chest rose and fell, I was grateful for my health, and in those 15 minutes before my alarm went off I was able to fill myself with so much gratitude for the moment and remind myself that the world is full of so much possibility, that it was actually a pleasure to get out of bed.  Because I'm young and I'm healthy, and who knows what can happen today?

I like to think the universe then rewarded me for my morning meditation, but I think it's more that once you start focusing on good things...

you keep seeing more of them 

(works the same if you focus on the bad things).

So while I ate my organic breakfast at a big wooden table, I watched a huge pink moon set over the mountains across Lake Champlain. 

It was unreal, y'all.

Then, as I drove to get on the highway a soft, creamsicle light started to creep up around the velvet silhouette of the Green Mountains.  As I drove on the light moved from marigold to electric orange where it offset the black, spiked towers of pine trees in my rear view mirror until the sun, bold and blazing broke over the top of the mountains.  

And I just shook my head because it was the most regal and imposing thing I'd ever seen.  

I'm not sure what else we should ask for in a day than to marvel at the sun breaking into the sky.  

And yet most days I'm like all the other commuters I was passing, coffee in hand, weather report on the radio, not even noticing.

I also got to take a ferry ride across Lake Champlain, as the sun continued its ascent, through calm water dotted with floating clumps of ice that looked like patches of seaweed made out of diamonds sparkling in the morning light.

So that was my morning.  And yes, I still have one more week of OB/Gyn.  And yes, the days are long and I don't particularly enjoy them.  

But I hope when I'm 100 and telling my grandchildren about my time in medical school, I'll forget the long hours and tell them instead how I once saw a pink moon set over the Adirondack Mountains.

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“He was still too young to know that the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past."

-Gabriel Garcia Marquez