Routine

I usually long for routine and school to begin this time of year anyway. By mid-August, the girls begin bickering, the heat and humidity begin to weigh heavy on my shoulders, and an absence of structure breeds a lack of motivation and numerous slothful ways called relaxation earlier in the summer at the cabin on the lake but now are the harbingers of shame should they continue much longer.

My yearning for routine has turned into an ache this summer. With the move, new schools at hand for the girls, including academic calendars that start weeks earlier than ever before, and extreme heat warnings which turn the tables on us -- we now hibernate inside in the summer just as we did up north when wind chill warnings kept us in the house in January -- routine has been hard to come by.

I know that as you get older they say that changing up your routine is good for brain health, and I buy into that advice. I also know that I may have a propensity for routine and order given my personality. No one loves to organize more than I do! And, I remember some of the routines of my childhood fondly. 

I am not talking about the routines around holidays or special occasions, but the routines that revolved around daily life like playing at the playground on Saturday mornings as my dad played soccer nearby and then took us for soft serve at Boy Blue on the way home. The way we listened to radio plays, lying on the living room floor on Saturday nights (so good for the imagination!).  The way my dad would slather butter and honey on a thick slice of German rye bread as a treat to help me sleep on the nights when my anxious ways kept me up. Or, the way my mom made paper bags full of homemade popcorn slathered in butter and salt to eat the one time each year that The Sound of Music or The Wizard of Oz played on television. (As I write, I am reminded why I am such a foodie!)

I am looking forward to building back some routine in our family life and also adding in some new routines as family life evolves with teenagers turning into young adults, building lives of their own. And, even as my usual level of routine continues to evade me, I appreciate the fact that the cat is leading the way back to a regimen. Cats are nothing if not bound by routine. Freddy has an internal clock that marks mealtime and bedtime so precisely that an alarm clock is simply not necessary.

Only ten days into living in our new home, Freddy has begun a morning routine, pulling me along unwittingly. After I wake, I feed him while I wait for the water to heat in the kettle. I make a cup of coffee and head to my desk. He tags along and heads straight for his cat bed that sits between my computer screen and the large window. He licks himself clean after breakfast and settles in to sleep the morning away with the sun glistening off of his fur.

I sip slowly and appreciate the view. Then, I turn to my email, to-do-list, and writing with companion at hand and see life slowly unfolding. Routines are slowly building. Life is good.

The Cat

Lawrence Ferlinghetti

The cat
                              licks its paw and
        lies down in
                            the bookshelf nook
                                                                 She
                                    can lie in a
                                              sphinx position
        without moving for so
                                         many hours
and then turn her head
                                to me and
                                          rise and stretch
       and turn
                       her back to me and
              lick her paw again as if
                                    no real time had passed
                     It hasn't
                                    and she is the sphinx with
                        all the time in the world
                                             in the desert of her time
             The cat
                    knows where flies die
                               sees ghosts in motes of air
                                                   and shadows in sunbeams
She hears
                  the music of the spheres and
       the hum in the wires of houses
                           and the hum of the universe
             in interstellar spaces
                                                      but
                prefers domestic places
                             and the hum of the heater