How Will You Begin? *
My love of dawn is so fierce that I manage to make others fall in love with it too. I will stop at nothing. I brew. I prepare breakfast banquets. I offer meditations on love and art. I have even employed a chanteuse to sing an aubade: Praise for the singing, praise for the morning, Praise for them springing fresh from the Word. And then I sit on the sofa watching others descend the stairs to her calling.
Sometimes I feel that I am abusing my obvious advantage—I’m fully awake when I execute this plan and the others are still sleepy. But I don’t dwell on this. I don’t have to. Once they’re sitting at my breakfast table, drinking tea/coffee and eating toast/croissants, they thank me for opening their eyes.
But perhaps this is not what you meant? I have also fallen in love with other kinds of beginnings—new countries, new states, new cities, a village, the pastoral.
Oh, wait. Now I understand the question. The answer is:
With love.
* This question comes from Bhanu Kapil’s book The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers (Kelsey St. Press, 2001) The book is structured around the responses to twelve questions. Bhanu encouraged me to give responding a try. And so I am.