Pull over Push

A morning routine to prioritize creative dreams

Thanks to bestie Joanna Meng for the bitchin’ candle.

When I was working as a full-time high school Spanish teacher and told people I was also writing a memoir, they reacted with shock. How could you possibly have time to do that? they’d ask. I could see the wheels spinning in their brains trying to figure out the equation.

I was equally perplexed considering the idea that you could just get up, drink some coffee, get dressed to go to work and NOT do something creative. But what about time to write down the weird dream you had, or the first lines of a poem, or plunk out a new melody on the piano? I couldn’t conceive of spending day after day at work, coming home to take care of a kid, make dinner, and fall down exhausted just to wake up and do it all again without the balm of an artistic interlude.

There’s no judgement about either choice (maybe bias…), but with the surprised responses, it dawned on me that we really have no idea how other people live their daily lives. It’s one of the things that attracts me most to reading. There’s something incredibly comforting about following around characters, fictional or otherwise, in their day to day moments, listening in to their thoughts, and seeing the world from their perspective. It helps me imagine what’s possible when I’m too stuck in a rut to consider an alternate way of living.

In that spirit, I’ll share my morning routine. It’s varied over the years depending on life circumstances, morphing and evolving to meet the current need. I like it best when it’s still dark and quiet in the house, so the earlier, the better. The practice really solidified five or six years ago when I read about Toni Morrison’s routine of getting up before sunrise to write before her children got up and going to her 9 to 5 job. I thought- if she could create all those incredible books as a mother and full-time worker in an oppressively misogynistic and racist society, I can write a memoir.

I used to get up around 5-5:15 to have enough time to write for almost an hour and still get ready to go to school around 7:15. Now that my schedule has altered to include more evening and weekend work events, it’s more like 6. It’s changed to include more care to the body-mind-spirit connection that fosters both well-being and access to our best creative work.

Before I raise the curtain to reveal my dazzling schedule secret, it’s important to mention the secret weapon that helped the creative practice take off.

I set up an inspiring physical space that set the scene, drawing me into a shimmering creative web where the beautiful black-widow-muse would sense the vibration and strike quickly with an injection of inspiration.

It took a lot of coaxing to get my overly practical Pennsylvania Dutch spirit (think Dwight Schrute from the Office) to really pay attention to what particular cocktail of elements would best get the creative juices flowing. I felt ridiculous when I decided to spray paint my black metal desk a vibrant ochre-yellow, buy a $10 ceramic skull incense burner, and carefully stage the two little crystals my twin and I selected from a freebie box at the local downtown rock shop (I live in a hippie town. Do you NOT have a crystal shop in your local strip mall?).

Knowing my own little quiet, groovy space awaits pulls rather than pushes me from my warm, cozy bed. When it comes to creativity, “pulling” energy carries an exponentially heavier atomic weight, which means everything at an early hour.

Take a minute to consider what might pull you toward your creative outlet of choice before reviewing the details of my little pre-dawn circus:

• Get up, light a candle, and fire up a YouTube video of singing bowls or other trippy, meditative music.

• Do a 20-25 minute yoga/calisthenics routine. This sometimes gets switched out with weird interpretive dance to drumming videos. Glad no one’s watching.

• 10-20 minute silent sitting meditation or listening to a free guided meditation. Darius Bashar has great ones on Artist Morning, but I often use one from the Mindful Movement or Tara Brach.

• Make tea, then come back to my yellow desk-of-power to write for 30-60 minutes, either chapters for a long-term project, poetry, journal, or pieces for Substack, writing contests, etc.

• On Wednesdays I do a few sun salutations and go right into music—either practicing or playing something new on the piano or guitar.

• Weekends are free!

This practice paved the way for the completion of a working memoir manuscript about my last year of teaching which chronicles the attempt to untangle the dual identities of educator and singer-songwriter before the former choked the latter to death. I can’t overstate the importance of prioritizing the thing you love before life’s daily current sweeps you away and the richness this routine has infused into my everyday existence.

I wish the same for everyone no matter what time of day you choose.

Enjoy 16 pocket-sized poems bringing small but certain happiness based on merchandise from a middle-aged shopgirl’s year working at the Luminarium gift shop. “A Luminous Year,” by Karen Joy Brown.

www.karenjoybrown.com