The Slow Morning
A morning worth savoring.
The pups wake me with a soft whimper and a nudge from next to my bed. Outside the window, the light is the kind that only exists for about 20 minutes a day — warm, unhurried, the color of linen worn thin. The house is still, and for the first time since yesterday, so am I.
I slowly slip out of bed, careful not to disturb the sleeping house. I open the patio door to let the pups outside for the first time for the day, and I feel the Texas heat start to thaw me from the overnight coolness of the house. The patio feels cool beneath my feet, and I can still smell the fresh grass from yesterday’s mowed lawn. I’m tempted to crawl into one of the cozy outdoor chairs, as the dogs wander the yard, but not yet.
The three of us go back into the house, and I turn on the espresso machine. Sure, it takes a few minutes longer than one of the convenient pods that I depended upon when I had newborn babies, but nothing quite beats this special treat that’s all mine in the morning. The smell of fresh ground coffee beans – hints of caramel and vanilla – the touch of brown sugar and cinnamon I add to the almond milk before I give it a little froth, the warmth of the steam rising from the cup all seem like a fond friend coming to welcome me into the day.
The latte feels warm in the stone mug in my hand as I head back out to the patio. I find a comfortable spot on the outdoor couch. It’s positioned in an early morning sunbeam and feels like a warm hug. The pups are sitting quietly at my feet, never venturing too far away. They’re waking up and taking in the new day as well. The birds chirping. The slight breeze blowing.
I’m tempted to turn on the water feature in the pool just to hear the falling water, but I don’t want to break the spell of the stillness. No phone buzzing or endless scrolling, no urgent messages from executives, no horns honking or children fussing or calendar reminders. Just the pups, the sunbeam and my coffee.
For a long time, I thought the point of a slow morning was the quiet itself. That if I could just get enough of it, I'd feel ready. But I've noticed something: it's not the silence that changes the day. It's the choice to be present in it — even for fifteen minutes — before the day has a chance to tell you who to be.
Most mornings don't start this way. Most mornings start with the phone, already lit up before my feet hit the floor. A thread of messages. Calendar reminders for things I forgot to dread. The news, always the news. By the time the coffee is ready, while I’ve been impatiently tapping my feet at the espresso machine, I've already been somewhere else a dozen times. The day gets a head start on me that I spend the rest of my day trying to close.
The difference between those mornings and this one isn't the time. I have fifteen minutes either way. It's that these fifteen minutes belong to me before they belong to anything else.
There are three small things I've started doing to protect that window — not rules, just rhythms that tend to hold the morning together when I follow them.
The phone stays on the table next to me. Not off, not silenced dramatically — just not in my hand. The things waiting in it will still be waiting in an hour, and they have never once been improved by being read before the coffee was finished or before I’ve hugged my kids and kissed my husband.
The first drink is made with care. This sounds small and it isn't. The two minutes I spend on the espresso — the beans, the froth, the brown sugar and cinnamon — are the two minutes I spend doing something entirely for myself, with no outcome attached. That matters more than I can explain.
And these first few minutes outside belong to no one's agenda but mine. Not the day's. Not my family's. Not the inbox that is already filling up. Just the sunbeam. The dogs at my feet. The water rippling softly in the pool.
In a few minutes, morning alarms will start to go off throughout the house and (not-so-little-anymore) feet will hit the ground. My daughter will call for morning cuddles – my heart will melt – and my son will say that the lightest whisper is too loud, right before he proceeds to dial up the volume on his stereo. There will be frantic yelps for where the favorite hoodie is and calls from the front of the house asking me to help pick an outfit. Different styles of music will play from different bedrooms. Water bottles? Snacks? Laptops? Anyone forgetting anything? Those 45 minutes will pass in a blur.
These 15, though? Unhurried, unbothered. I watch the sunlight slowly creep across the yard. It’s gently kissing the water in the pool. I inhale and imagine I’m on a balcony overlooking a white sand beach with the morning sun and a great cup of coffee as my only company.
I pick up my phone and see that it’s time for me to step back inside and start waking the rest of the house. We’ll make time for the cuddles and help each other get packed for the day. And I’ll be grateful that I have this time with those two little angels I helped shape. I’ll try to be like the sun kissing the water as I go about the rest of my day, not in a race to catch up.
