Outside this window 53
Outside this window today waits to surprise me.
I stumbled back to bed clutching coffee. My eyes felt grainy, like I’d slept on a beach. I wish. Instead I set my alarm for one hour earlier than intended. Confused questioning first thing in the morning is never good. Words are hard to form. Listening is a struggle. The world swims in and out of focus. Brain refuses to reason; instead it demands answers. Why is this happening? Circumstance has a dream like quality where the improbable is absolutely true until truth tunnels her way through to me and drags me into the light. Like the time I fell asleep, missed the end of a film and insisted to B that Home Shopping was part of the plot.
So when I stumbled back to bed this morning I was still fruitlessly wondering how, how did I manage to do this? We could have had a whole ‘nother hour of shut eye if it wasn’t for my stupid alarm. It’s all so important. Dramatic. Heightened. Urgent. Which is fundamentally strange because my functioning ability at that time is anything but ‘heightened’. I can barely speak. Likewise it’s odd I don’t have the energy to open my eyes yet I can be fully relied upon to have a dramatic response to any undesired situation first thing in the morning. My sense of urgency is devoted to going back to sleep. Coffee keeps tantrums subdued. Any undesired situation involves anything that does not involve coffee.
So it was later than usual when I yanked back the curtain. Usually I gather the spectrum of blues; the harder cotton at the back and the softer silk at the front. I gather them together and tie them to the side leaving the turqoise veil. While I am gathering and tying I am gazing at the world outside, orientating myself. Not today. I yanked the curtain to the side, spun around and schlumped back into bed. After yesterday’s dullness I was not expecting much. And I certainly wasn’t expecting a beautiful autumn morning. The sky is a perfect blue; leaves dangle and wag like lambs’ tails, and the sun casts her golden shadow across Friday.
Gazing at the changing light while sipping coffee from my bed. Gentle sunlight melted the grainy veil from my eyes. Reason shuffled back to take his place with the rest of my Advisors. Urgency parked his car and walked towards the house. And me — the person buried beneath the lack of sleep and the cups of coffee — breathed an ecstatic Thank you into the ether.
Outside this window are an infinite number of reasons to be tired. But just as I realised I could not write and worry about what was going to happen next, I know I am safer than most. Safe to hear the silence between birds calling to each other.