Routines

By Steven

I feel like most of you have a sense of my life to an extent. The word 'routine' is one that basically doesn't exist. Sure, my basic work structure maintains some consistency, but only some. My non work life maintains zero. I average a 1-2 am bedtime and amount of sleep hasn't been a priority in a while. I also don't do the same things at night or in the morning daily. Totally different ways of getting out the door depending on the prior evening or the mornings needs. Sometimes I just go to work at 9, sometimes I gotta make the babies at 6am.

So it's amazing to me how immediately I fell into my foreign 'zone' when I got here. I wake up at 6:30. I step onto my deck and it's the same picture every day; bizarrely gray sky, but a good morning sky. The roosters are crowing and the two chocolate lab puppies in the mini village next to our hotel are chasing all the chickens around. I think the chickens love it cause when the puppies get bored the chickens come over and peck their heads.

Morning time is all about the broom in Ghana. Everyone in every house in my vision is sweeping the red dust and dirt from their porch and steps. Once the sweeping is done the long poles with a rounded edge come out and the casaba pounding begins to get food ready for the day.

As for me, my foreign zone has been the same since I went to India in '95. I wake up early, I go outside, and I do some tai chi. It's like how I acknowledge that I'm not home and that my body needs to be ready for something new and nothing gets the body and mind better than a little yang style. I think its the smell that does it. China, India, Ghana, Singapore all have this gritty smell that I feel like I only get in foreign countries. I'm sure it's just a combo of dust and smog but it definitely triggers the knowledge in my head that I'm not in the States anymore. Post Tai Chi I usually just sit and listen to the world. Being calm, when I so rarely am, and figuring out where in this new place I can fit in.

There's also something wonderful about a set time for dinner, knowing everyone's gonna be there, and knowing there will be some interesting if not great conversation till the night ends.

I should probably learn something from all this zen....probably.

Bu then I'm sure KC will have another crazy 6am dance party and all will go back to local normal.

Tai Chi's done. Off to the day.