Somebody told me, a year or so back, a piece of sentimental wisdom. The sort of pass-around knowledge that draws simple and easy lines across experience. And to key you in, I'm not one for that sort of stuff–but I reckon this drop of thought had something to it. "Do what's important to you first thing in the morning. That's what shows your priorities," she said something along those lines. Well, "the early bird catches the worm" comes to mind and indeed she enlisted that favorite phrase as evidence. But the former is far more clear than the latter. Trite expressions and words of wisdom are valuable insofar as they teach us things we'd otherwise need experience to recognize, such that we stumble a little bit less when experience comes along, so I reckon this lady outdid the "early bird" turn of phrase.

Anyhow, experience has come along as it sometimes does–slowly and somewhat–and I find it holds true. Doesn't so much set the tone of the day as it does the tone of life. Wake and arise! And act as you must live. I can't set to anything consistently in the morning rightaway: one must choose each according to the preferences of life. These preferences of life also ordain to one: draw and write and fall asleep!

Tortoises and hares, worms and birds–a good number of animals will have amassed rustily soon. When one looks back on tribal myth, the role of animals is immense. Now, in an industrial society we no longer live and work alongside animals–we are at enormous distance from them: what will happen to these phrases and ideas? One wonders if the tortoise still races the hare.

"But what is it the kid is after–the baby wild with excitement at the sight of a kitten, the six-year-old spelling out Peter Rabbit, the twelve-year-old weeping as she reads Black Beauty? What is it the child perceives that her whole culture denies?"

–Ursula K. Le Guin