Routines for The Road

Something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately is the concept of home, of shelter, of refuge. The writing process helps me feel at home, but something about the structure that writing demands helps me to ground myself when I feel uprooted.

Today, I am about one month into moving from a city to a suburb. After having moved at least ten times, I know that each transition comes with its own chaos. Moving requires us to pick up the pieces of our lives and sort them, to decide what is worth lugging around, what will be left behind, and what we would be okay with losing (to damage, to misplacement). Moves come with costs of all sorts: financial, temporal, emotional. One of my coping methods involves routine, or finding calm within consistency.

There are certain joys in my routines that seem to hold in every place that I’ve lived. I count three threads in my adult life: sunrises and sunsets, running with nature, and reflection.

The sunrise is a special time of day for me. In the city, the time before the sunrise was one of the few times of my waking hours that felt quiet. In the suburbs, quiet is not so difficult to find, but the sunrise is no less special. Though I am partial to spending early hours on calm beaches and running with the morning sun.

From left to right: sunrise in Myrtle Beach, SC; sunset in Limón, Costa Rica; sunrise in NYC; sunrise in Florida.

Any day that it is feasible, I run outdoors. Running helps me see nature in a way that I might otherwise miss. Sunrises, sunsets, rivers, and the occasional tree that grows through concrete, they all inspire me to try to run awhile, for minutes or hours each day.

A tree growing through stone in Florida.

Another daily practice I keep is writing. And I’ll be honest with you—this leisure writing practice is difficult to maintain, and especially so while settling into a new physical home. I still think it is worth building in the time, even if it’s just a few minutes (and sometimes it is just a few minutes). The time that I set aside to write helps me to self-organize. That organization that comes from written reflection gives me moments of calm.

My writing tools: physical paper and a tablet with a keyboard.

Any change in life forces a sort of restructuring. I think we need constants in our lives that help us feel calm, cope and, in time, thrive within ever-changing situations. My routines have allowed me to move through life with some certainty, regardless of where I’ve lived. If home were something we felt, if not love, it would be calm.