It’s 5 am. Before the coffee even dreams of brewing, the cats stage a coup. One launches onto my chest, another yowls like a banshee at the bedroom door. My grandson, Taj, barrels down the hallway in full mythic flight. David calls for help with his pills. I unleash swear words like an unholy mantra. Instantly, I want to bite through my tongue. For the love of the Goddess, I haven’t even located my own name.

Some mornings aren’t just mornings, they’re underworld initiations. I think of Persephone, one minute gathering wildflowers, the next snatched into shadow. Queen of the in-between. She knows the shock of being claimed before you’re ready.

I just want fifteen quiet minutes, time to return from the dream world, a small dark cave of silence. Not an hour, not a spa day. Fifteen. And still, after forty-plus years of marriage, asking for it feels like blasphemy.

But here’s the secret gift of the underworld, it’s fertile. Writers know this rhythm. We wake with intentions and find ourselves kidnapped by life, cats, texts, grocery lists, the pomegranate seeds of distraction. Yet even in the dark, something germinates. Chaos becomes compost.

So I breathe the cool soil of Persephone’s realm, let the noise settle, and watch a sentence sprout. By 9:30 am with coffee and a strawberry smoothie in hand, I’ve turned this ambush into art.

The house softens. The cats curl. The coffee flows and I become the Queen of my own small underworld, carrying the hush of dreams into daylight.

Anyone else experiencing a rough start to the day?