Early On

There, then, is the role of the amateur: to look the world back to grace.
- Robert Farrar Capon

Yesterday, at the end of a long, scampering day, I flipped open the front cover of my new book and read the quote above. I was still at work, still packing up the remainders of the day, but I wanted to pause for a moment to see if there was an epitaph (I distrust many books that begin without one - more on that another time). Then, as I read this brief line, rolling it over and over again in my mind, it was as if everything that buzzed so insistently through my head all day quieted, and for at least a moment I felt a little more in control.

In the very early morning I crawl out of bed, untangling myself from Andrew's long armed grasp, tip-toeing as gently as possible through creaky old doors and over creaky old floors, and I spend the early hours in outward silence and inward chatter (the good kind). Without realizing it, part of why I love this time so much is that I can, in a way, "think the world back to grace." It's all perspective, and though that's really true all day, these early morning hours are more readily in my grasp, calmer and quieter, and easier to notice. What happens, the best part really, is that the more I look the world back to grace during the early hours, the more I see it as the day progresses, the kinder I feel to myself and those around me. It's easier, I guess, to look life back to grace when you've offered it to yourself first - when you've seen the value.