Coaxed into Wonder by the Dawn's Early Light

When my children were small, I loved to wake them up slowly. Often, I didn’t have time for this during the week, when early mornings devolved into a fevered gallop-to-school, jet-to-work frenzy. But on the weekends, the fever subsided and we had time to smooth some jagged edges. Standing by my son’s and daughter’s beds in the morning, I would watch them dream, dewy and perfect in their rumpled night clothes, smelling their sweet perfection, listening to their baby-child snoring, wondering how I got so lucky. Then, depending on which parts of their bodies were exposed, I’d rub their backs softly, or kiss their toes, stroke their hair and sing-song them gently into a welcoming world.

They’d pretend to be asleep as long as they could, prolonging the wake-up call. When I was kissing her bare shoulders one summer morning, Ariel gave herself away by lifting her hair up so I wouldn’t miss planting a few kisses on her snowy little neck. These scrumptious mornings usually happened on Sundays, when there was absolutely nothing standing outside our door, tapping its foot, insisting that we hurry, hurry, hurry, and they often resulted in french toast collectively created in our tiny kitchen. Those days wove us together, even though, financially and professionally, they were some my darkest days. The connections still hold.

This morning I awoke from a deep sleep as instantly and unmistakably as though someone had called my name. I was already in the process of turning over to face the open window as I woke up, so the first thing I saw was the morning sky. The vibrant color hit me like heat from a just-opened oven. The sky was pure tangerine, a day-glo feast so fake you’d never get away with it on canvas. Black velvet, maybe. Canvas, no.

I walked downstairs to let Bob Dog out and once again the color jolted me, then drew me outdoors, oblivious to what the neighbors would think to see this pixilated woman in her pajamas, beguiled by the dawn’s gaudy light. The air itself seemed suffused with peach and pink and orange, as though I had awakened on a redecorated planet, the old blue and green scheme replaced by something more dramatic, more happening, more now.

This happens often, this sudden awakening just as I’m turning over to look to the east. It’s why I leave the blinds open, why I find it hard to sleep in no matter how late I’ve hit the hay. But the question I find myself turning over in my mind is, what is it that wakes me? I’m asleep, with my back to the window. What is it that whispers in my ear, “Wake up, wake up, wake up. I have something wonderful to show you ...” and has me open my eyes just at the moment of splendor? Is it me that wakes me up or does It? And if it’s It, why does it wake me? Does it want me to do something, or does it just want some company? Does it need to hear an exuberant, affirming “Oh WOW!!!!” on days when it’s popped out a particularly remarkable dawn?

Or perhaps It is the mother and I the slumbering child. It hovers beside my snoozing self, caressing my back, tugging on my bare toe, coaxing me into a welcoming world full of secrets and satisfactions and deep mystery. I feel knitted up, embraced, included.

I wonder how I got so lucky. And I bless the ties that bind.

–kc