Let the light enter, December 19, 2017

As the solstice approaches, I cling to my morning rituals. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the ritual actually begins the night before. I pack my gym bag, get my coffee cup ready, line up my work bag, pack my lunch, and set my alarm. When it goes off at 4:30 am, I get up nearly instantaneously, partially because of the previous night’s ritual of preparation, partially because I know how frustrated I will feel later in the day if I don’t get up in time to make it to the 5:30 am spin class. Sometimes I remind myself of Twyla Tharp’s words from her book The Creative Habit :

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual; I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st street and First Avenue, where I workout for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual.

It’s a simple act, but doing it the same way each morning habitualizes it — makes it repeatable, easy to do. It reduces the chance that I would skip it or do it differently. It is one more item in my arsenal of routines, and one less thing to think about.”