Creature of habit

In response to a flurry of tail wagging, sub-vocalized whoofing and hard staring, I hauled my carcass out of bed this morning and trundled downstairs to feed the canines. After seeing to their needs – and ONLY after seeing to their needs; they can be quite insistent at 7:00am on a Saturday – I started a pot of coffee. With luck, I could get the coffee maker going before the dogs finished inhaling their kibble and ran for the back door, intent on heading outside for their morning exercise in fluid adjustment.

This scene has played out substantially as described above most days for the past however many years. Weekends I’m up an hour or more later than on weekdays. Sometimes Mary beats me to the draw. But for the most part, this is the routine for the first fifteen minutes of my day.

I was struck this morning by the extent to which I am a creature of habit when I happened to glance into my empty coffee cup. It’s one of the ones my daughter gave me and I tend to use it a lot. In the bottom of the cup into which I gazed – gazing into bottoms of coffee cups being entirely consistent with my usual frame of mind and level of consciousness at this point in the process – was a pattern of scratches.

I realized the pattern was made by my spoon as I stirred in the sweetener and fat free milk. Same fixings every day and now I came to realize, the same stirring method. The circle of scratches, concentric with the inner wall of the cup, is defined by the distance between two parallel lines, one tangent to the outer curve of the spoon and the other bisecting the curve of its tip. The scratch circle is surrounded by innumerable increasing radius curves, each beginning as a tangent to the central circle.

Each of the radial scratches proceeds in a counter-clockwise direction. So it would appear that my right-handedness dictates that my coffee stirring habit is as predictable as my dog feeding routine.

If you look at my airline carry-on bag, you’ll always find two ball point pens and a yellow (or occasionally light blue) highlighter in the center sleeves of the front zipper section. The same set of cords, connectors and other accessories is always to be found in the well section, each in its own zip lock baggy to avoid entanglement. I generally carry a small baggy of spice drops for use in combating airplane dry mouth and my Nook is ever in the same pouch.

Before this takes on any more of the all too familiar patina of boring prattle, I’ll move on. Kindly stipulate that for any of the most common everyday activities in which I engage, there are repeating patterns that the discerning observer might record. That is, assuming anyone in their right mind or otherwise would care to observe my daily life patterns at this level of detail.

Today, I am recovering (please, Gawd, I AM recovering) from a nasty cold and so won’t be accomplishing any of the physical tasks I’d planned for the weekend. I’ve some work to get done on a lesson plan and I’ll do some writing later. Some house cleaning if I can overcome inertia and perhaps I’ll sort through…well, you get it. Sick day stuff.

Tomorrow I fly again to Eastern Washington to lead a workshop at one of my favorite non-profits. Then I’ll spend a day working with the folks at another non-profit. This too is part of a life pattern, although in a more macro sense than my morning routine.

Both macro and micro, the patterns of our lives vary in response to outside influences, both predictable and un. But for the most part, it’s the patterns that provide the background and the context of our lives.

I’m working on changing some of those background patterns of late. Less sugar and fat in the food, less food for that matter. More exercise. Less TV and more reading and writing. You know the drill.

I’m working on a project that may well serve as the capstone of my salaried career. I’ve hopes –possibly unreasonable, but oh, well – that the book I’m finally writing will be a capstone in a more personal realm. And of course, in the most personal sense, Daughters One and also Two are the ultimate capstones.

I wonder if the Hawthorne effect will kick in regarding my coffee stirring protocols. If I look at the bottom of my cup in a few months hence, will the scratch pattern be altered? I dunno. And I probably won’t check; at coffee-stirring time of the morning, I’m usually not all that analytical.

I like my habits as they are. They are a framework about which I don’t have to think much and they allow me to comfortably proceed with my intentional life without worrying about too many upsets. When I set up to teach on Tuesday, I can reach for my pointer without looking down. I will be sipping coffee tomorrow morning before I am consciously aware of being awake. And having fed the dogs and swilled my coffee, I will get on with my life.

Which for the moment, I am enjoying immensely.