March 31, 2021 - From Issue No. 8 - 2020 “The Morning Routine” - Jamie Soltis - (I of II).

The Morning Routine
Jamie Soltis

After the first couple of weeks of quarantine, I took it upon myself to improve my tolerance for alcohol. Although I practiced as much as I could over the years, I certainly wasn’t winning any “Most Dedicated” awards like I was in my twenties. But that’s human, isn’t it? Life just gets in the way sometimes. However, since I was now working from home, it was clear that I had gained a few extra hours in the day. My commute disappeared, and showers slash clothing were now optional. So what to do with all of this extra time?

I told my spouse that we should use this time to become skilled bartenders. Sure, we were basically experts in the field of beer, but that was child’s play. Shouldn’t every grown-up be able to concoct a decent Manhattan? After swindling a friend into giving a cocktail-making class via Zoom for one of my “work events,” I bought all the fixings. I made a great Manhattan and it was a great day. And now there are two full-minus-one-ounce bottles of vermouth squatting in my refrigerator.

“Let’s just stick to what we know,” I said. “We know beer, we know we like beer, and we should be looking for any scraps of happiness we can find right now.”

“Agreed,” said Spouse. “And we should not feel guilty for the drinking because we’re all going through some tough times right now. We need to cope.”

“Right!” said I. “And we’re supporting businesses!” “Right! We are good people.”

“Right.”

As nice as that period of time was, it turned out it did make me feel guilty. And tired. And funny! (But only to myself. One person’s funny is an- other person’s mean.) Then after a few weeks, it seemed that the quarantine orders weren’t going anywhere. And I thought that maybe, just maybe, excessive drinking wasn’t a great habit to start up again.

I changed my coping plan: I would now become the most ethical and productive person money could buy, via my Morning Routine: 1) Awake at six. 2) Meditate. 3) Write some morning pages and a gratitude list. 4) Switch from coffee to tea. 5) Exercise. 6) Go outside. 7) Water the fire-escape plants. 8) Drink a smoothie. 9) Practice Spanish. 10) Read for pleasure. 11) Read for education. 12) Read the news. 13) Scream into my pillow. 14) Go to work.

The day had a plan, too: 15) Eat a lunch of vegetables. 16) Back to work. 17) Stretch those limbs once an hour every hour. 18) Go for a run. 19) Socialize via Zoom and/or with Spouse. 20) Reverse morning routine. 21) In bed by 10. 22) Repeat.

What really happened: Nothing, besides the screaming. (I’m not alone in this, right? I’m pretty sure we’ve all been expelling our new apocalyptic neurotransmissions in this way for months now.) So I thought, hey, I’m no morning person. Not a night person either, but stay focused, Jamie! Okay. What if I start my workday at noon? Then I can get up at 8, do all the stuff that good people do, and still be able to squash the guilt that comes along with sloth. Yes! Aren’t your Facebook friends saying to look at this time of quarantine as a blessing? Think positive!

I’m sure you can guess what happened. And if you for some reason don’t think I slept until 11:59 each day, you are incorrect, my friend.

But guilt is a strong motivator. Once it got loud enough, I thought, “Okay, let’s see if my smartphone has some sort of alarm clock inside.” It does! And then I got real with myself: was there anything on my ambitious morning routine list that I actually enjoyed? Not really. Was there anything in life that I actually enjoyed that was missing from the list? This question was hard to answer through a cloud of depression, but after a while, I thought I heard a voice in my head whisper, “biking.”

Biking! How had I forgotten about biking? My bike elicits such fond emotions from me, I regard it as a pet. I’ve hugged the dang thing. I love my little bike. Somehow, it’s survived five years with me so far without getting stolen. This is the beauty of buying cheap or ugly products. Life hack.

I hadn’t meant to abandon it for so long, but sometimes the thought of getting up and doing anything is just overwhelming. However, on this day, when my hormones seemed almost stable, I told myself, “Don’t think about it. Just grab your helmet and go.” So I did.

The first couple of pedals lit something up inside me. “Oh yeah . . . I love this.” The beauty of Brooklyn is that it’s mostly flat, so for a non-exer- ciser such as myself, cycling is a dream. It’s maybe the only thing I do for pure pleasure. I love it. I don’t force myself to go fast –––– I believe a jogger once passed me –––– and for the few bridges or hills that I do encounter a little cardio activity sneaks in, thereby erasing the guilt of not being active enough. And on the other side of those hills, I stand up on my pedals as I whoosh down. I believe it’s the closest to flying I’ll ever get.

These thoughts flash through my brain in an instant as I turn left onto Church Avenue in Kensington. And then . . . Nightmare Time. Traffic! Now I remembered why my bike had been collecting dust for so long. I don’t know if you know this, but drivers around here have the right of way every time, all the time. And the really magical part of this is that amongst each other, each individual driver also has the right of way every time, all the time. For example, you might think that, as a driver at a stoplight who will be going straight (or, gayly forward, as my friend Jeffy liked to say) has the right of way –––– and you’d be right! But do you also know that a driver coming from the opposite direction who will be turning left also has the right of way? I know! It’s a miracle! And did you know, drivers absolutely adore cyclists. They like to blast their horns in greeting and open their doors into bike lanes and give little love taps now and then. And don’t be dismayed by that spit and cigarette ash coming towards you ––– it’s just their way of saying hello!

The traffic forces you to heighten your senses. As Erica Ferencik says in Into the Jungle, “The ones who survive are the ones who pay attention.” And eventually you get used to it, and you learn to work with all elements of the city, and you remember that you are not the center of the uni- verse. And you ride through new neighborhoods and marvel at the huge houses you didn’t think Brooklyn had the room to build. And you find yourself thinking about the people who built such large houses. Did they need to go to Manhattan every day? Would they walk? Did they have bicycles? Was this house surrounded by farmland at one point? And before that, all forest?

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Jamie Soltis is an actor with a special affinity for comedy. She has ap- peared in shows like Difficult People and the Blacklist and currently works with the Episcopal Actors Guild, a 501(c)(3) non-profit that pro- vides charitable assistance and career support for performers of all faith, and none. Via Blog O’ Beer (Can Beer Make me Friends?), she writes about bars and restaurants in and around New York, NY.