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.
This morning the moment occurs as she takes in a deep breath and slowly releases it in a full relaxing satisfied sigh. Opting to briefly ignore the pull of life she clamps her eyes shut even tighter as if the act itself will barricade the encroaching reality of day. After a moment the battle shifts as the physical need to stretch overrides her decision. Her arms and legs extend, her right hand pushing against her left until it meets the resistance of the wall. Ankles cross and toes point as her body shudders at the apex of her stretch. She rolls onto her side and curls into the fetal position unwilling to take that last step to wakening. The futility of her act overwhelms her as she realizes what she felt during the stretch. The aches, the stiffness, and especially the dried remnants of last nights adventure breaking away from her soft inner thighs. Then, as memory makes its appearance, she smiles, her eyes still clamped shut as the last hours of last night play across her mind's private movie screen.
Typically she overanalyzes things but this morning she allows the cacophony of images to drift along of their own accord, letting her body and subconscious tell her that every moment was absolutely worth what ever it took from her. The images are raw; the language unfettered. The things she sees in her head happened, she was there and did them, a wanton and willing participant. Never had she turned herself loose like that, never would she have believed that she would do some of those things. She had crossed over a different kind of threshold last night, skewing forever her perceptions of desire and fulfillment.
Finally, accepting the fact that she was now awake, and more importantly alive, alive in a way she might have never felt before, her eyes crack open. The soft light streaming into the room through the half closed blinds seems momentarily as bright as the sun at midday. She lays a moment longer and draws in a deep breath to fuel an even bigger sigh than the one a moment ago, bigger because it is attached to a more conscious understanding of her contentment. The smile that had been unknowingly playing at the corners of her mouth all night as she slept, now matures and lights up her face as the thoughts of him begin to circle and fill her mind with his essence.
