Each Day Wraps Itself Around Us

Each morning we wonder what shape the day will take around us. Each day wraps itself around us as we throw off the heavy blankets of the night and rise to meet the dawn as it comes up over our lives.

Usually we know what shape the day will take, carved out of the routine of our days. Sometimes though the new day has a new shape, something we have not seen or touched before. There could be something new about the day: waking in a new place, or setting out to take a new job. We wake knowing that the day will take this new shape around us and we are ready for it.

Other times though, the day’s comfortable routine will wrap itself around us and we will expect no more than the usual day, each day usually has some surprises, but they re the mere fluctuations and flexings of the day-to-day, nothing that hasn’t happened before.

Sometimes, though the day will fall apart around us, suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere the whole day will fall around our feet, leaving us stunned into immobility, aware that the day has left us open and exposed to the turn of events without the comfort of familiarity. Even that very familiarity will be torn and things that seemed so normal will seem strange to the touch. Then, for a while, we will be wary of everything, in case it too turns away from us and becomes strange, losing its familiarity as the twisting day distorts the very air around us, making it too hard – for a while – even to breathe normally.