It was 6:14 on a Tuesday morning in November when I realized my life had changed without me noticing. I woke up before my alarm—not from anxiety or restlessness, but because some part of me wanted to. Wanted the quiet. Wanted the space between sleep and the day's demands.

Six months ago, that would have been unthinkable. I was a confirmed snooze-button addict, dragging myself out of bed at the last possible second, already behind before my feet hit the floor. But then I moved into this 1889 Folk Victorian on Front Street in Ravenswood, and everything about mornings started shifting.

It began with noticing. Through my bay window, I could see Evie on her porch across the street, sitting cross-legged on a cushion, completely still in the pre-dawn dimness. Not scrolling her phone. Not rushing anywhere. Just... there. Then Tom would appear, running shoes already laced, heading down toward River Road at exactly 6:00 AM like clockwork.

I started setting my alarm fifteen minutes earlier. Not to practice yoga—I didn't even own a mat—but just to watch. To sit in my kitchen with coffee and see what happened in those quiet minutes before the world woke up. The radiator would clank to life. The sky would slowly lighten. Sometimes Bill would appear on his porch next door, coffee cup in hand, settling into his duct-taped rocker.

The morning practice isn't about perfection. It's about presence. It's about showing up for yourself before you show up for the world. —  Maya Chen

After two weeks of just sitting and watching, something shifted. The stillness started feeling less like waiting and more like practice itself. I found myself lighting a candle—just a cheap one from the dollar store, nothing fancy—and sitting with my coffee a little longer. Noticing my breath. Noticing the quality of morning light on the old plaster walls.

Emma noticed first. She texted one Saturday morning: "Saw your kitchen light on early today. You okay?" I wrote back: "Yeah. Just... trying something." She replied with a heart emoji and "That's how it starts."

By December, I'd added gentle stretching. Nothing fancy—just rolling my shoulders, touching my toes (or trying to), basic movements to wake up my body before my mind fully kicked in. I still didn't call it yoga. It was just... morning movement. My private ritual in the parlor, where the wide-plank floors creaked under my bare feet and the bay window let in that particular quality of winter dawn light.

What surprised me most wasn't the physical changes—though yes, my shoulders stopped hurting from hunching over my computer all day. It was the psychological shift. Starting my day on my own terms, with intention rather than reaction, changed how I moved through everything that followed.

On mornings when I practiced, I didn't snap at my coworkers on video calls. I didn't spiral into anxiety spirals by 10 AM. The same stressors existed, but my relationship to them had changed. I had created a buffer—a space of calm I carried with me into the chaos.

Bill caught me one morning through the window, mid-stretch in my parlor. Later that day, he stopped by with a rolled-up yoga mat. "Found this in my basement," he said gruffly. "From when my daughter visited years ago. Seems like you might use it." It was purple, slightly dusty, perfectly functional. I still use it every morning.

The ancient yogis understood something we keep forgetting: how we begin determines what follows. Not in some mystical, magical-thinking way, but in a deeply practical sense. If I start my day rushing, reactive, already behind, I spend the next sixteen hours trying to catch up. If I start with stillness, with breath, with the simple act of noticing—everything else flows differently.

Here in the Mid-Ohio Valley, we're blessed with mornings that make practice almost unavoidable. Mist rising off the Ohio River. The particular quality of light filtering through these old wavy glass windows. The way Front Street looks in that blue pre-dawn hour when the Victorian cottages seem frozen in time.

Tom and Jacob have their running meditation—six miles along River Road, barely speaking, just moving through the landscape. Iris leads seated meditation at her place on Market Street in Parkersburg every Wednesday at 6:30 AM. Sarah does gentle yoga on the second-floor porch of the Marietta inn, where she can see the river. Evie's practice is the most formal—a full hour of asanas and pranayama that she's refined over twenty years.

But the most powerful practices I've witnessed are the simplest. Emma sitting on her sun porch with tea, watching the sky change. Jesse in his Parkersburg kitchen, making coffee slowly, deliberately, like a meditation. Rachel doing five minutes of conscious breathing before opening her laptop for the day.

What does a morning practice look like? The beauty is that it's entirely personal. There's no right way. No instructor grading your form. No achievement to unlock. Just you and the quiet and whatever ritual calls you back, morning after morning.

Start small. That's what everyone here will tell you. Five minutes. Maybe less. Light a candle. Make your coffee. Sit in a comfortable spot where you can see outside. Notice your breath. Notice the light. Notice how your body feels before the day's demands take hold.

From that foundation, your practice will evolve naturally. You might add stretching. Journaling. Walking meditation. Formal yoga sequences. Or you might just sit with your coffee for twenty minutes, and that might be exactly enough.

The science backs this up, of course. Morning routines reduce cortisol, improve focus, enhance emotional regulation. But we don't do it for the science. We do it because we've discovered that those quiet minutes before the day begins are when we remember who we are underneath all our roles and obligations.

I asked Bill once what his morning practice was. He looked at me with that patient river-captain gaze and said: "Coffee on the porch. Watch the light change. Notice what I notice. That's it. Been doing it forty years." Then he went back to his rocker.

That's the secret, I think. Your morning practice doesn't need to be elaborate or Instagram-worthy or even recognizable as "practice" to anyone else. It just needs to be yours. Consistent. Intentional. A small promise you keep with yourself before keeping promises to anyone else.

Some mornings I flow through thirty minutes of yoga. Others, I sit with my coffee and stare out the window for ten minutes. Both are practice. Both are showing up. Both matter equally.

Remember: this isn't another obligation. Not another item on your endless to-do list. It's reclaiming space. Creating a foundation. Beginning your day from a place of intention rather than reaction. When you approach it with curiosity instead of judgment, everything shifts.

The morning practice isn't about becoming the kind of person who does yoga. It's about discovering what happens when you give yourself permission to begin your day on your own terms. To create a ritual that's yours. To show up for yourself before showing up for the world.

Start tomorrow. Or don't. Start next Monday. Start with three deep breaths. Start with watching the sunrise through your window. Start awkwardly, imperfectly, inconsistently. Just start. The morning will meet you there.

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