Quiet privacy

It is early morning.  I wake up at 5:15 AM during the workweek and turn and embrace my husband. We are both naked.  The heat of his body and the warm waterbed embrace me.  His hands touch me with sleepy love; my hands do the same to him. I love the smell and feel of him. I love that I am not alone; that he is there in the dark and that his heart is with mine.   We drift off until the snooze alarm goes off.  That dark, quiet, close place in the morning is sensual.  What a way to start the day; skin to skin, touching. 

We have coffee together and then he leaves at 6 AM.  Now I have some quiet privacy.  It is still dark; the children are all asleep.  I finally have time for myself.  I am supposed to be doing my college class work but I resent doing that.  Instead, I do my favorite things; I read (Planet Waves) and I write (here or in my diary) and I dream.  I comment on PW posts or answer e-mails.  Sometimes I go back to bed and make love to myself because I wanted to make love to my husband but he had to get up and get ready for work; there just wasn't enough time. 

These few dark hours and sunrise are the only privacy I get in a day full of three teens and a young son and an evening with my husband.  So in this quiet privacy, I meditate, remember and dream.   I feel my feelings and feel my body that is changing.  I feel the turn of the planet and the pine trees outside.  I feel the sacred mountain out back and the huge, blue skies above.  I feel the slow awakening of the plants and animals in the morning.  I feel the dark belly that is winter approaching.  I love being home. 

This life; of being a stay-at-home mother and wife is far better than the life I had before children; that life of working in jobs where people were so superficial and office gossip and politics so negative.  People often ask me how I can stand it, being home all the time.  The answer to that is easy;  here I am my own boss and though I give my time and energy to four needy people, I choose that and I am not constantly critiqued on it or threatened with the loss of income or livelihood while doing this work.  I am not at the mercy of people who have different (often superficial and self-serving) values.  It is a work that is fulfilling and happy.  I can have a slow day or a fast one;  my choice.  I am lucky that my husband  has no problem with me being a stay-at-home mother and wife.   I do not denigrate women who work;  maybe they like the office gossip or politics and don't see these as negative. 

Just as I can feel the slow turning of the earth and the change of the seasons, I can feel the slow growing and changing of my kids and myself.  It isn't about getting recognition or status or money, or even time with adults  for me;  it is about feeling that quiet moment, that cycle, that deep wheel of time.  I need this.

I love dark mornings because in this time, I cultivate gratitude for my love, my family, my earth, and my life.