Awakening: the beginning of the day, the first step in the resolute cycle of motion and rest that our bodies rely on. In the modern world, however, awakening is not allowed the courtesy of coming when it pleases. It is normally brought forth by way of an alarm. A loud and purposefully annoying sound meant to jar our lethargic persons out of a probably much needed REM cycle.
It wasn't always this way. Most of us have lost the knowledge and sense of what awakening should be like. Sure, we might get a glimpse every now and then. Maybe on a weekend with no pressing chores, maybe on vacation, or after a short nap on a hammock in the green warmth of spring. Rarely however do we stop to appreciate it.
Sometimes we greet it with antipathy as it releases us from that perfect dream all to soon. Other times it is clutched at quickly and held tightly as the horror gives way to the security and familiar surroundings of home. But for her, on this day, it was as it should be every day.
It was a long slow process, her senses returning slowly just as an animal's must as it stirs from hibernation. The first step is a subtle awareness of change. The brain begins to send out a rapidly growing number of signals that slowly override our innate ability to slumber. As the brain becomes active our senses become more alert adding to the complexity of incoming information, thus increasing the brains power to wake us by creating conscious thoughts. To her on this day she feels the soft coolness of the sheets against her naked body. Then the sounds, her breathing, the fan, and the traffic outside, as her senses grow in an ever-widening circle, sending out and receiving data individually to create a perception of place, time, and even that very ephemeral choice of emotion.
Then it happens, the part that is normally arrived at so quickly due to the screeching of the hated alarm. That instant when the realization that you are not really asleep any longer hits you. The senses are sated, the brain is processing more than the unconscious can handle and it is always here, at the moment when it begins to take conscious thought to try and stave off consciousness, that you know you are awake.