Top of the Mornin' to ya!

photo by Connie Schroeder, copyright 2010

It is exactly 12:32 am here in upstate New York, and I am wide awake.  Well, maybe not "wide" awake.  Maybe awake is the more operative word here.  At any rate, I am awake and unable to sleep, and there is a list of possible reasons this is the case.  The most obvious reason is that I had a 20 oz cup of coffee this morning, Hazelnut Cream, when I rarely drink coffee these days.  I rarely consume products with caffeine, although I will admit to loving Earl Grey.  Only Twinings will do!!!  That is usually when I wake up, and I barely dip the bag for more than 30 seconds.  A 20 oz cup of coffee is a definite overload on this nearly- caffeine-free-zone that is my body.

A second reason could be that I am just wound up after our Tuesday evening writers workshop.  Gosh we had a good time together, writing and reading and listening.  So many stories.  So many thoughts.  So much history we each bring to a word or a concept.  One of our words was "rapture"...well, you had to know that would come up in a group of feminists where four out of five of us have been doing church work of some sort or another for a number of years.  None of us wrote about "the rapture" however.  We took the other approach to the word, and there were some lovely things written about that state!

photo by Connie Schroeder, copyright 2010

Well who wouldn't be buzzing with 20 ounces of caffeine moving through her system and creativity flapping wildly in the wind?

Then I came home and found an email about a job possibility on the Oregon coast.  WORK???  Could it be a real possibility after all this time?  Could a door be opening?  It's really too early to get all worked up about this, but I just can't help myself.  Oregon is my favorite place on earth, and the coast is such a good place for my body.  No allergies all summer last year, and how I love to walk long walks on the beach. 

I suspect however, despite the writer's group and a job possibility, along with the 20 ounces of caffeine, that the real reason my eyes are open and my heart can't rest, is that a friend whom I love is quite ill and in pain.  His wife, my dear, dear friend, tells me that she thinks he will be leaving us soon.  And she doesn't know about herself if he is gone.  They have been sweethearts for so many years, I imagine she finds it hard to think about herself continuing on without her life partner.  I so want her to stay.  The world will be a different place for me when I lose these wise old friends of mine. 

Changes, heart wrenching or joyful, ask so much of us.