Taking Time

A soft tapping sound slowly pulled me out of sleep this morning. Fat droplets were jumping down the roof onto muddy puddles by my window. It’s raining.

The alarm didn’t go off for some reason, but I’m not late. It takes me long fuzzy minutes to emerge from a comfortable sleep to a state of minimal awareness. I’m feeling lazy. I roll over in my sheets and revel in the accumulated warmth of a full night’s sleep. I don’t know if I’m smiling, because it doesn’t matter.

I’m drifting in and out of reality. I stray along the borders of daydreaming, oblivious to my obligations and responsibilities. Without an effort, I’m slowing time down to a trickle.

I softly brush my hands against my face, stopping at the top of my cheeks, breathing against my palms. I pull my arms up, stretch and get almost convinced I’m going to awaken and get moving. But no. My hands go back down, under my head. I’m so comfortable. I stay atop of a minute there, looking around my room like I’m seeing it for the first time. As my gaze goes from the ceiling to the wall, the night table gets in the way. I’m surprised by my ability to focus on it from so up close and spend delicious moments following the grain of the black stained wood in the faint light.

I wake up years later into the same morning. At some unknown point in time, I’d gone back to a deep sleep, like I had some unfinished dream there that wanted to happen. Now that it’s over, it’s released me from its grips and I start to float back up into my quiet bedroom. Nothing’s moved.

As I start to wonder what time it could be, I refrain from looking. Instead, I turn my back to the alarm, exploring a new area of my bed, fresh and soft. I think of those who occupied that place at various points. Waves of feelings start washing up and I go from sad to aroused to melancholic to satisfied. I’m a lucky man.

The deep, long sigh that follows my thoughts is one of profound thankfulness. For what life has brought, but also for what I seized and what I let slip away. As my memories change into ideas for what’s to come, a gentle flow of energy starts to circulate inside of me. Reality is closing in.

Oh, of course I’ll get up eventually, but just not yet. This morning, I’m taking my time.