The Morning Before

The Morning Before

March 1, 2026

It’s a new month and a new day.

As I wake up I can hear the birds.

We sleep with our bedroom windows open most nights while the temperature still behaves. There is an owl in the backyard that makes the darkness feel inhabited — as if we are not alone but also not part of anything noisy or human. Just something living nearby.

This morning the birds were awake before the sun.

So I made my coffee and settled into the writing room — the one with the white pillow-back sofa and the long cut wood desk I dragged outside weeks ago and then brought back in because it felt like it belonged here.

Outside, the world was covered in a thick fog.

All of our little buildings — the studio, the treehouse, the barbeque area — softened into outlines. The yard looked less like a property and more like a place you walk through in a dream.

The air was cool and fresh.

I sat with warm coffee and a sleepy grey cat curled beside me and, for a few quiet minutes, I was simply in my life.

My dad texted:

“Good morning sweetie, staying out of family drama.”

I smiled. Not really at the words — just at the familiarity of him reaching outward into the day.

I kept sitting.

I noticed the phone.

I noticed the notebook.

I noticed the house holding still around me.

Lately I’ve been moving things.

Making spaces clearer.

Painting rooms white and soft blue.

Choosing linen instead of heavy fabric.

Opening windows.

Not decorating exactly. Preparing.

His room is becoming calm — pale walls, simple bedding, fewer objects. A place where nothing competes for attention.

The guest room that once felt crowded now feels quiet. The clocks are easier to see. The pathways are open. I find myself arranging the house so that it can be understood at a glance.

I don’t think I realized what I was doing.

I was trying to make a place where the day doesn’t have to be figured out all at once.

The fog stayed for a long time this morning.

Long enough that the yard looked suspended — not yesterday and not yet today.

I sat there longer than I planned, coffee cooling in my hand, the cat asleep, birds moving through branches I could barely see.

I didn’t feel like writing today.

But my pen had a lot to say.