Mornings

Every morning I drop Aziza off at school, come back home, eat an adequate size bowl of cherrios, have another cup of coffee, and stare out my kitchen window - the window that faces the parking lot behind my building. And across the parking lot are some smaller apartments with balconies, and each morning I see the same man sitting out there, smoking cigarettes, and maybe waiting for his small line of wet clothes to dry. A little while later, he takes his morning walk down the length of the parking lot and then around the block I presume. I usually don't track him once out of my kitchen window view.

And then I sit at my laptop, like I do every morning, and think, "Okay, what do I want to write about today?" And I am pacing myself. I have trunkloads of buried stories from the last four decades of my life that I know would widen even the most usually unaffected eyes. But I'm pacing myself. Will I ever sit and write the book about the absurdity of my life, and how I know I should have been the girl riding horses, her own horses, and living a life where there was no screaming and constant fear, but instead calmness and logic, and perhaps even love. A life that had been filled with options and possibilities, and the support from a family that I only saw in other people's homes. Families I studied, and questioned to myself, "Why can't my family even somewhat resemble the normalcy I see here?" I was filled with many questions.

I'm looking out my kitchen window and the view is not altogether inspiring but it depicts where I am right now, and it is my motivation to seek out lovelier views.