This Month's Story

Wakey! Wakey!! Rise and shine!
You’ve had your fun and I’ve had mine.
Cooks in the galley, beans are on the stove.
Wakey, wakey, heave and stow!*
(* Start of British Royal Navy reveille call)

I roll over in bed, putting the morning light from the beach directly in my face. What I am doing is important to me, important in that otherwise I would have as easily stayed in bed for another hour or two. I’m absorbing in a subliminal way the rising of the day. I’m very gradually letting in a conscious feeling of being alive. I don’t think about this. I just let it slowly happen: very slowly. And when it does, I’m ready.

The fact of what I’m trying to convey is that I’m an early morning riser.

But don’t get me wrong, this does not mean I’m totally awake when I rise. It takes awhile. I normally get up between six and six thirty, shower and proceed to the kitchen. There, I fix coffee, orange juice, some toast, and a small dish of tapioca and blueberries and then go sit on the porch (or, if it’s hot, the dining room) and watch the sun come up. I do all this in a sort of comatose state, moving from task to task by force of habit. Jennie, our gray German hound, stays close behind me, following my staggering path even when sometimes I’m obviously confused on exactly where I’m supposed to go.

As I move about, I hear the nails of her paws clicking faintly on the Mexican tiles of the kitchen floor. They make a pleasant sound in the soft morning quiet of the house.

Years ago, Stella and I drove all the way to Mexico and bought that tile. We all but broke the springs of the truck carrying that heavy load of tile back to Mississippi with us. Somehow we made it and a local tile setter put it down for us. Now the noise of Jennies talons clicking behind me is part of the morning; part of the natural ambient noises of the house. The click, click noise means the house was still there, that morning has come once more and that Jennie is there with me.

Sitting down finally for breakfast on the porch eases my confusion. I can just stare at the morning scene, the beach, the waters of the Sound, the gulls and the sun starting its rise. Mind you, I’m not contemplating any world-shaking thoughts. Mostly, I’m just sitting, sipping my coffee, looking out on a world, freshly touched by a new day’s sun.

But in truth, I am doing something that is important to me, important in that otherwise I would have as easily stayed in bed. I’m absorbing in a subliminal way the rising of the day. I’m very gradually letting in a conscious feeling of being alive. I don’t think about this. I just let it slowly happen; very slowly. And when it does, I’m ready.

I reach down and stroke Jennie sitting patiently beside me;

I wave at a jogger going by on the beach road.

I’m alive, I’m here, it’s another day, and it feels good.

There are other people like me, people who get up early so that they’ll have a longer time to loaf. But there are other people that feel just as strongly about the other side of the day - the time of sunset and the relaxed, end of the day and the coming of the night.

But since I am not one of those people, I’ll let them tell you themselves about their end of the day.