
synagogues have two services, early and late, to accommodate everyone who attends High Holiday services but doesn’t come much the rest of the year. You can’t build a really big sanctuary for just a few days of annual use.
For five years now we’ve attended the
second, afternoon, service. After decades at a previous congregation and having to rush in the morning, getting my own nylons on and then white tights on two little girls, it’s taken some getting
used to having a morning free. But today it gave me some meditation time to jot down these thoughts.
Coffee in the morning is God’s gift to the world. As unawake as I am when I first get up, drinking a cup, that first cup, is the best moment of the day. I’m awake and alive and thankful to start a new day of potential, relishing the quiet and true alone time while it’s still dark outside.
I’m up but I can’t move much. I’m still connected to me and not the world. The energy is different somehow. The world hasn’t intruded yet. I’m in my own quiet bubble, especially if I turn the laptop off. When the whir stops, the quiet is so thick in my ears I could cut it with a Q-tip.
I like to feel enclosed, wrapped in myself, covered with a blanket of silence. A small space suits me best. Boundaries of my own making. The caress of quiet, the flow of silk through my ears. I want the world but in the early morning I only want me.
I keep the white wooden blinds down until I’m ready to let in the world, until I gird myself for that first contact. Suit up, throw open the door, touch concrete, blink back the flash of sunlight after the morning cave light.
The world is still there. Outside. I’m not sure if that’s good or bad. But I’ll engage in any case. At night I’ll escape back, slough off the cape I wear that protects me from the Out There, safe again in the In Here. Ready to exhale the thoughts, concerns and actions of Them. Taking on the house slippers of Me.
I stop but I am not refreshed. It takes a night to rid myself of Them and get back to Me. I sleep with Them. I rise as Me. The first sip let’s me know that I am whole again.