Achieving Mental Sanity in the Morning: A Formula

If you wake up in the morning and you're nuts
like bat shit crazy
wheels spinning
anxiety soaring
no anchor, no root, no tether to speak of--
welcome to the pressures of pastoral ministry
(or just the normal stuff of human-being-awake, literally and figuratively).

While it's presumptuous to think there's a once-size-fits-all remedy
to pre-sunrise panic, I'd like to share what worked today,
yes for you, my beloved readers, but more for me, in case I forget
and need to be reminded of a formula-for-relief later down the road.

Move your body out of the bed before any one else stirs.
Give thanks for a moment of quiet.
Make the coffee extra hot.
Eat a peach.
Wrap a hand-knitted, prayer soaked blanket around your shoulders.
Read James Baldwin. Read that paragraph that you underlined,
the one that knocked your fucking socks off, at least three times.
Read the bible, specifically a parable, about seed-sowing and 3 types of soil.
Remind yourself: what kind of soil you choose to be is up to you,
and it has everything to do with how you listen and how you respond.
Pray in the silence. Ask for help, specifically, with the shit that vexes you--
name it, name them, name yourself. Then see how it feels to acknowledge your limits.
Give thanks for a place to be powerless, in all honesty.
Pet the dog whose needs are real. Let the dog out, whose bladder is real.
Hug the college student, the one whose like a daughter to you,
before she goes back to NY. Squeeze her tight: it's going to be a while.
Tell her about a dream you had: about how she doesn't ever have to choke,
not for the sake of anyone. Give thanks for feminist writers who taught you not to choke.
Go back to bed and stare at your spouse holding your child,
behold how their still-sleeping bodies signify all that truly matters.
Crawl back in with them, snuggle as a threesome for a while,
 and after taking the baby back to her crib,
make love to the person whose partnership you cannot fathom living without.
Feel it: the connection, the intimacy, the love, all in skin. Feel it.
Get up. Go to the kitchen. Play Ice Cube's "It Was a Good Day"
and give thanks for growing up on early 90's Los Angeles hip hop,
while stirring the pancake batter with just enough force to leave some luxurious lumps.
Prepare yourself, mentally and physically, for door-knocking in an hour,
because queers are the liberation of the Earth and they deserve legal protection.
Write something to remind yourself that there's thinking and then there's living.
And living is best just.like.this.

Love,
self.