The Wake of Morning

The blue ceramic mug that sat on the edge of the porch for three years is gone. It was chipped at the rim, a jagged little scar that caught the light every morning at seven, just as the sun began to pull itself over the horizon. When it was there, it anchored the day; it was a promise that the morning had arrived and that I was still here to witness it. Now, there is only the empty wood of the railing, a clean, unblemished space where the mug used to be. I find myself looking for it, not because I am thirsty, but because I am looking for the shape of my own routine. We spend our lives filling spaces with objects, hoping they will hold our history, but eventually, the objects vanish, leaving behind only the quiet, insistent geometry of the void. What is it that we are actually trying to keep when we hold onto the things that define our mornings?

Yohann Libot has captured this feeling of fleeting presence in his beautiful image titled Eagle Creeks. The way the water holds the movement of the travelers reminds me that we are all just passing through the silence of the world. Does the water remember the path they carved, or does it simply return to its own stillness?