Routine, holy routine

This post is about building a routine, and it was written during Blogmas 2020, a challenge in which I wrote a post a day for the month of December. Routine came to inform my workdays, as it aids in my creative process. I love how having routines both soothes and grounds me.

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I wake up earlier than usual. My first thoughts race around the commitment I made to post daily for one month, which makes me equal parts thrilled and terrified.

Noticing the dim shades of gray seeping through the curtains trigger the next rumination: another day of obnoxious weather. And yet, linen swept aside, and I leap from my bed like a kid on Christmas morning. It’s Blogmas # 2, and I’m about to sit at the table by my living room window – usually a gloriously luminous area, today a pool of faint blue. I switch on the lamps.

My first steps wake up a symphony of hungry cats that quiets once the kibble hits the bowls. I take vitamins, drink water, and make coffee while they gobble, and, before sitting down, I also open the window for their first rooftop-yard-railing excursion of the day. Coffee, notebook, satiated cats, and the break of dawn: all is well in my world. I scribble three pages each day, sometimes more. The camera has become my Blogmas witness as I register bits of the process in timelapse. Then I post them to Insta stories; it helps with accountability and makes the process feel more tangible, less solitary. I have been journaling since January 2020, after starting The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. The practice became a touchstone for my work later in the year when I returned from my trip to Portugal.

After pages, I’m usually hungry, so breakfast follows. I like to eat a rich first meal, as you may have noticed from Instastories. Then I sit at my laptop desk and type. Important writing is done in the early hours when my brain is fresh, and I often do it with music playing in the background. It lifts my spirit. I can edit video whenever, but writing only works in specific moments of the day. I recently found that having assigned spaces for each task aids in the creative process, which my artsy soul would never have believed Before. For clarity: there’s Ana Before cancer + the pandemic and Ana after, so I’m capitalizing Before. Anyway, Ana BCP is a great prompt to explore tomorrow, so stay around, friends.

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Header: my fur children + my dearest Elizabeth

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