I have always been a morning person but recently it’s been taking me most of a morning  to get fully charged.

I start with coffee but Vic complains that I’ve been drinking more than I used to, i.e. more than my share. Yet I still drink a bit less than he does. Why is this a problem? Can’t we just make more coffee? Well, the system we’ve adopted to make our artisan pour-over, deliciously strong coffee makes no more than 700 g of coffee at a time. (Yes, we weigh it.) If one of us needs more than our established share, we have to make another pot or partial pot. That’s too much bother first thing in the morning.

But coffee is just the start. I’ve been needing more than my established share just to do the next parts of my charging routine.

Coffee (and a certain amount of sitting, staring, news scanning, sighing, and Facebook browsing) is followed by10 minutes of Daily Om’s Chair Yoga. I’m doing chair yoga because I’m dealing with a knee injury. The knee injury has been hampering all kinds of exercise, which is one reason for the morning sluggishness.

I’ve written and complained too much about my arthritic knees. Everybody my age seems to have knee problems. Just notice how many of us walk slightly pitched forward and waddling side to side. This is because our knees hurt more when we fully extend our legs. I don’t want to walk that way but, believe me, I understand the impulse.

Recently one of my knees went “out.” No other way to explain it. Not only was it painful but it felt clunky. Something was not right. Stepping the wrong way brought sudden pain in the back of it. After I’d hobbled on it for several weeks, my friend Deanna was able to help it go back “in” through her energy techniques based on Process Acupressure. The joint had been misaligned. After she did her thing for about an hour, and while she was just sitting and explaining the misalignment to me, my knee suddenly realigned itself. It was quite impressive.

However, the tendons and muscles around it are still weak and so it feels like it could go out again any time. Healing is happening but it takes time. Thus the chair yoga, protection while strengthening. Even Silver Sneakers classes at the Kroc Center would be too strenuous for it right now.

Then after the yoga I do a daily practice of energy awareness and meditation as instructed online by the wondrous Master Kim of the Sun Shen collective in Ann Arbor, MI.

This is not just something I happened upon. I have known this collective since its beginnings, a decade ago, because our daughter and son-in-law have been involved in it. They both learn and teach at Sun Shen and have helped develop its unique methods of healing and practice. I was one of the first to sign onto the Daily Practice series when it was first offered a year ago. It has been very beneficial, although right now my knees are making me modify the standing part of the meditation.

I highly recommend the Daily Practice series. It starts off very short and easy and eventually hooks you into extending your practice because it’s so enjoyable. It has enhanced my other meditation practice, Centering Prayer, which I usually do later in the day.

But after all that is done the morning has shrunk to about two hours for productive activity, whatever that might be. And if I decide to scribble, like I’m doing right now, even less. Only 45 minutes till lunchtime. Such a shame, because I am feeling charged up right now but pretty soon I’ll be hungry. What can I do in 45 minutes?

Catch up on emails, water the plants, start some laundry. Routine stuff seems like a waste of good battery power but it’s too late for Creativity! Projects! Ideas!

Oh well.