Waking
Monday, August 25th, 2008

I make a silent vow on Mondays to appreciate every second of the weekend. This vow is made sometime after the alarm clock goes off or threatens to. When I roll over on my side and see the room beginning to warm with light and the shadows around the furniture and the pictures on the wall brighten. My wife’s body is warm and though it was decided by our unconcious minds that it was not comfortable to hold each through the night, we sometimes re-embrace at dawn or lock a leg together.

I lay there for some time in that warmth beneath the covers. This late in August the windows are slid open. The whoosh of early morning commuters passes by our house and I feel late, in some way, even if my job hours begin an hour or more later than the drivers’. My whole day begins as soon as my feet touch the carpet and I pull on my bed clothes that I leave within reach. I make several nominal attempts to fall back to sleep. I have neither the time nor the patience once the world is awake to go back down into a shallow, meaningless slumber.

Meanwhile the room gets brighter as do the prospects for the day. Dread of my day job isn’t an issue, it’s the real feeling of loss I have of something precious, the commodity of family time and the last moments before I leave them all for the day are like the last lines of story that, in the end, has no final fulfillment or redemption until late Friday afternoon.

Tags: Monday