sunday, eleven july: starting over.
Morning routines just kind of crop up--I stopped drinking coffee, mostly, sometime during the pandemic year. Not because I don't like coffee, I don't know. For a few months I was making chai, simmering some fresh ginger and spices in milk, adding loose-leaf black tea, straining it. It was good, the cinnamon stick makes it sweet, it was something to do in the very long mornings. For months at a time I was waking up at five, not even with an alarm, I just couldn't sleep right. The chai was something to do. Then I started buying tea, and little tea strainers. We have a lot of tea-tins cluttering up the counters right now. Black tea for the mornings, herbal teas for the afternoon, these fruit teas that I'm trying as a substitute for a glass of wine after dinner.
Anyway, that's part of the morning routine. And I do the crossword puzzle (two hundred forty-something day streak on the New York Times now) and some dumb game on my tablet, and lately I've been doing Duolingo too. Routines are what you make of them and I'm trying to think about how I use my time. I should be running again, or at least stretching. I should be something. I shouldn't be scrolling twitter while my water boils. I shouldn't be moping.
So maybe I should be writing. That would solve a few problems--I'd feel less like a lump. I'd feel less isolated, too. This is another experiment in just talking to my friends, those who are still putting up with me, everyone I love at a distance and miss with my small hermit heart. Fair warning, though--I might be using tarot cards as writing prompts. I'm happy to talk about why, if anyone cares. Anyway, hi, welcome to small notes, maybe daily, we'll see how it goes.