The dawn breaks

I love my house early in the morning. Actually I love my house anytime, but at this hour of the day, when the sun is creeping up over the eastern mountains and the western ones are still dark silhouettes against the sky, it's just dreamy and lovely and still and quiet and perfect. And I love it.

There's so much promise in the dawn. Anything could happen today – I could even predict some of the events which will certainly break this early-morning stillness – but right now it's calm and peaceful and pretty.

As is customary after a trip, I have hundred of e-mails stacked up on the computer to go through. I have a little bit of freelance work to begin. I have to pull something out of the freezer and figure out what to make with it for dinner, and what to serve beside it.

I have to find time for intentional activity (that's what I like to call exercise, it has a more positive spin to it in my mind) and laundry and a game of Scrabble with my husband, who has missed me the past few days, as I visited my son and his family, and will miss me the next few, as I leave again tomorrow to head in my daughter's direction.

I was not a good mother to my children when they were young. I married and had children before I had a clue of what it would be like for real, for real, and they suffered. You can ask them, they'll be the first to tell you they suffered.

Aging has helped, but sobriety has helped more. I like to think I've kept a young spirit. Young is my maiden name, so I will always be Forever Young (the Dylan version, of course). Sobriety has given me the ability to live in the present moment, drinking in all the available joy instead of masking it, pushing it away, wanting always to be someone or somewhere else.

I'm a good mother now, and no matter how old my children are I will be their good mother. And, if I do say so myself, I'm a really good grandmother. In the dawn's early light, that's a nice thing to know.