Rebooting the Brain

It was early morning but it was light outside. My light-sleeping dream was interrupted by a growling outside. My dream state conjured up images of lions or bears disrupting my sleep but as I came closer to reality my cloudy brain processed into a lawnmower. My neighbor has a lawn service and early morning is when they perform. Gas mowers and weed-whackers sang their sputtering songs and dragged me out of sleep with their melody. I am not a good sleeper; I often spend a few hours watching DVD’s from my comfy chair until my back is ready to handle lying down again. So on these mornings I am especially ornery when my sleep is interrupted. This was a particularly bad night of restlessness and now a bad morning of these animals growling at my neighbor’s house.

I got out of bed and into the shower in a bad mood. Even the shower felt like it was pelting me into more anger. As I stepped out of the shower I slipped and further aggravated my back, my knee, and my temperament. Not a stitch of my clothes went on easy, my toes caught in my pants, the neck hole of my shirt was too small and when I was finally covered I saw I had smeared my deodorant down the sides of my black golf shirt. This was not a good morning.

I walked to the fridge to find someone had taken my last Diet Coke (the breakfast of champions) and stepped outside to pick up my papers from the driveway. The garage door opened and I stepped out of the darkness into the bright morning sunlight. As I stepped into the warmth of the morning sun I caught a whiff of the freshly mowed lawn and it stopped me in my tracks. The smell; the smell of a freshly mowed lawn rebooted my brain. I forgot the morning and was called back to springtime in Indiana, rolling in the grass with our dog Princess, playing baseball with my brothers, climbing trees, and just laying down with a blade in my teeth planning my busy child-like day. The smell reminded me of teaching my kids to roll down hills, of my daughter riding in a carrier on my back as I mowed the lawn and her giggling the whole time, and of my kids and I just lying down with a blade of grass in our teeth planning our busy child-like day. The smell rebooted by brain and I forgot the anger, interruptions and irritations of the morning and loaded in sunshine, summer days, green grass, and joy.

Is it time for you to reboot?

www.themoralbusiness.com