On Waking

I lay awake in bed, just feeling the sun on my skin, opening and closing my eyes, again and again. Sometimes I kept my eyes closed a little longer and just focused on how I felt, because lately I keep waking up in heaven, and I want to enjoy it accordingly. It was easy to want to stay there. During the sunrise, the blue of the sky had made quiet, secret, passionate love to the deep red of my curtain and so this morning revealed the most pristine and royal purple I have ever seen. I heard, playing in my mind, Mercy Me, “I can only imagine, when that day comes and I find myself standing in the sun… surrounded by your glory, what will my heart feel, will I dance for you, Jesus, or in awe of you be still,” and so I listened quite contentedly.

Usually, I snap myself out of this place between sleeping and awake, uproot the music in my mind, then in its stead firmly pack in a thought process of my choosing but this time, I sang along with this lonely, pure voice. I harmonized with it. Beginning the day in this way, I supposed that this would be one of the greatest mornings of my life.

As the music faded and my regular thoughts prevailed, I slowly raised myself onto my forearms with my shoulders rolled back, looking up, my hair grazing my shoulders and my back, feeling somewhat glamorous, like sleeping beauty, awakened by the everlasting kiss of sweet true love.

Indeed.

Fittingly, I gathered from within a most charming sing-song voice with which to rouse Scooter the dog, a voice I am sincerely certain could enchant and lure all the nearby forest creatures to parade joyfully into my door, later helping me wring the soapy sponge in the shower and slip my silken blouse over my delicate feminine figure. The birds would hoist my otherwise-forgotten purse upon my gracefully outstreched arm, all whilst wistling cheerfully, of course.

I hate to disturb in any way his incredible cuteness. His soft, cloud-like body, gently rising and falling from breathing is something I could stare at in wonder, the way a baby does a mobile, and drift dreamily back to dreaming dreams, but no…

I’m no sleeping beauty, I'm a nighttime sleep-position-shifter, a drowzy mumbler with disheveled hair. And I’m certainly not a baby, I’m 21, and that’s not a mobile, it’s a dog. And I think I felt my wide, black pupils shrink to match the light just then. My warm feet on the chilly wood floor, I stood.

Something would have to be done with my hair. I wanted the dog to join me in the bathroom, so I took him by the collar with me to the door. Bent over so as to keep him from running on down the stairs, I turned the knob. "Ting, ting, ting" his collar charms chimed as if to express their anticipation of the warm Summer air, and of the sun, and of the dew. In his excitement, Scooter decided to help me open the door, and in doing so, yanked so hard that it drove my face directly into the doorframe. And now, I was finally awake. And with a big red bump to prove it.