Before the World Arrives

Years ago I stumbled across a morning writing exercise. I wish I remembered who created it. I think I found it on Pinterest, copied it into a notebook, and carried it with me. If anyone recognizes it, please let me know so I can properly credit the author.

The prompts are deceptively simple.

What did you pay attention to this morning?

What was the first sound you heard when you woke?

What scent was in the air?

What drift of memory or association is floating through your mind right now?

What beckons to be renewed, reframed, restored in your life?

How is the world trying to speak to you?

The instruction was to answer them before looking at your phone, before reading the news, before checking your email—before the world has a chance to tell you what deserves your attention.

I think that’s the part that stayed with me.

Our attention is pulled in a thousand directions every day. Headlines. Notifications. Email. Other people’s urgency. Before we’ve even had a chance to notice ourselves, we’re already responding to everyone else.

This little exercise quietly asks us to do the opposite.

To notice first.

What I didn’t appreciate at the time was that it contains another quiet instruction.

It asks you to write by hand.

Don’t get me wrong—I love my Mac. I love my iPad. I love my phone. I love having the literal world at my fingertips. But I was trained as an artist. I drew before I could write. I studied drawing, painting, and ceramics long before keyboards became my primary tools.

Still, I love the feel of a good, solid pen in my hand. The slight resistance as it presses into the page. The tiny indent it leaves behind. Even the sound changes depending on the paper. Smooth paper whispers. Rough paper answers back. Pencil feels different than ink, and even pens have different voices.

Writing by hand asks something different of us.

Your body has to transfer the idea from your mind into movement, and then into words.

There is a lovely kind of alchemy in that.

It slows you down. The thought can’t outrun your hand. Somewhere in that slower rhythm, you begin to notice things you might otherwise rush past.

This practice grounds you in your body and in the physical world around you, not just in your thoughts. Before the headlines. Before the notifications. Before everyone else’s concerns become your own.

I think that’s its purpose. To remind us that attention is a practice.

I wish you a lovely morning.

May you find a few quiet moments before the world arrives.

And may you remember to notice yourself, too.

— Vesper

A little behind the scenes PS: the mug, the Oxford notebook, and the rabbit sketch all belong to me. It felt right that an essay about paying attention should begin with things from my own desk.