Thoughts on Process From One of Our Founding Members
THURSDAY, APRIL 5, 2012
Dawn | A Note on Process
By A-lan Holt, member of the 2013 Emerging Writers Group
These mornings I wake up at Dawn. A ritual I began in January but am just starting to fall into. I am finding the dawn to be a healthy space to wake. The new air is cold and sharp. Some mornings the furnace in our apartment works and the chilled hardwood is warmed and gracious to bare feet. Most days it is still dark and wet outside: too cold for these California bones to shake themselves awake; and so I lay. Try to remember easy things like the time, where I am now, like, right now- easy things… The Milky Way… Third Planet from the Sun…Earth… North America…United States of America… New York State… New York City… Brooklyn… Greenpoint… Sutton Street… the top floor of a three story walk up we have just started to move into.. the center of three rooms.. my bed..my head..my body. I am finding it important to always start the day by reminding myself of where I am; further, by marking a transition between passively experiencing my dreams and the waking activation of them.
These mornings I wake up at Dawn. A ritual I began in January but am just starting to fall into. I am finding the dawn to be a healthy space to wake. The new air is cold and sharp. Some mornings the furnace in our apartment works and the chilled hardwood is warmed and gracious to bare feet. Most days it is still dark and wet outside: too cold for these California bones to shake themselves awake; and so I lay. Try to remember easy things like the time, where I am now, like, right now- easy things… The Milky Way… Third Planet from the Sun…Earth… North America…United States of America… New York State… New York City… Brooklyn… Greenpoint… Sutton Street… the top floor of a three story walk up we have just started to move into.. the center of three rooms.. my bed..my head..my body. I am finding it important to always start the day by reminding myself of where I am; further, by marking a transition between passively experiencing my dreams and the waking activation of them.
The mornings, I am finding, are peace: are these quiet pockets of time when most of the inhabitants of my world sleep. They are these small spaces that span a couple of hours all my own. This time to write (or dance) or be alone, by myself, as I need to be to create these small universes, these intricate new worlds. Indeed, these days I am learning the mechanics of carving out space for this type of work. And O, what a gift the morning has been.
