When the alarm went off at 4:00 this morning the first or four movements from Schubert's Impromptu, Opus 90 began, and—I indulged.
Usually, I spring up and hit the switch, but this time I decided to sate the moment.
For twenty minutes, the pianist petaled* his fingers across the keys. At first, i just laid there with my eyes closed, repeatedly thinking "should I get up? should I get up!," each time thinking the same thought as if I was asking anew, for my mulling somnolence kept pulling me backwards.
Finally, by the second movement I had decided, that—if I were to entertain this whim of lazy delight in euphony—it was necessary and most sensible to at least open my eyes to confirm my commitment to the task of rising before the sun.
This was the second step to waking up.
The third included sitting up in the center of the bed and beginning to meditate in my own personal style of faux-yoga.
With my legs folded and tucked underneath me, I unfurled my arms out with the suave gesture of a prima donna placating the gawking crowd. Then closing my eyes I brought my arms in and placed a kissing pair of thumbs beneath my chin, placed a matched first fingers against, to rest, upon my nose; and rolled through the patter of envious subsequent couplings of digits one-by-one.
It made me feel like a rolling jelly-belly, Jelly Roll Morton, playing a rag with an obsequious smile extended toward the horde of half-drunk patrons at the old-time, old-town saloon—1, 2, 3, and a tap of my toe, as I put the graceful touch on the end of the first half of movement of this impromptu exercise.
At this point, all the demons of spurious, furiously charging thought were ostracized to the "go hither and bother someone else" as I moved further inside myself to be left all alone. And, in serene (waking) repose, I relished the kinesthetic pleasure of mentally following the path of my lithely prancing fingers.
Upon the opening of the third movement, I opened my eyes wide again to meet the blank white silhouetted wall affronting me (affronting in a positive way—that is to say, the momentary animation of inanimate objects, such as walls, to suggest an imaginary imbuing of conscious movement upon the part of the object). I merely sat there for another five minutes with my palms up and open, floating them upon the basin of my knees, and breathed, patiently.
By 4:15 I decided this rapt purge of a posture was overextending into the reality of duty and obligation, and at the start of the last quarter of the piece, I decided it was most prudent to get up and out of bed. Thus, I unenraptured my self and met the clamant world again.
And in a minim after the transition found myself already a tad frustrated by the exigency, for I really wanted to linger, primarily as a token gesture to the delusional notion that I might be strong and patient enough to sit quietly for a moment without any worldly intentions calling upon me to drive my attention away from this cathartic rejuvenation.
Regardless, of this internal bickering, I realized the mitigating compromise was to take my tooth brushing back into the bedroom to wait it out while scrubbing softly enough, so that I might be able to listen wistfully between the sound of silence and bristling.
The sound of the small radio sitting quietly atop my dresser was charming in an endearing old-fashioned way, for its enticing plush redolence of blended allegro and andante dully contrasted against the sharp crisp sound of digital stereo music heard via headphones. This bewitching quality echoed splendidly throughout the hallow of the hollow room.
When the time the self-deprecating announcer with the sultry raspy voice came on to ask if anyone was awake during this wee hour, I concluded my gentle dental cleaning and went to spit-and-rinse®.
"And for my personal fourth movement" I spontaneously decided to play "wake-n-bake."
It had been two years since my last herbal confession, so since I was indulging after all, I did not hesitate to light 'er up, so that I subsequently might enjoy all aspects of my two cups of freshly brewed Columbian more thoroughly.
The THC guided me warmly for the next twenty minutes with an arousing ecstasy to accompany my work, as I assiduously wrote this very chronicle. At the crescent of each passing minute, I paused for a moment to earnestly encourage my self to move forward mentally and finish the composition before utter lethargy set in and took over.
For, yes, it was quickly denigrating into a one-hit-wonder of a morning, which made it increasingly difficult to concentrate and not furiously detour through the labyrinth of free-thought, thinking liberated from the menacing desire to keep the imponderence (imposing cognitive dissonance) of rigid pondering on course toward the sequential order of logical and rational cognizance.
Thus, I sat smiling, cozy in my regular warming outfit, the 17 year old robe, which although worn at every cuff and hem, and even tattered at the right sleeve, so that it is sadly half-hanging, and reveled in the this garment which was still as precious to me as new love.
The enduring-endearing quality of my robe was like the feeling of being one of the two sickly-giddy people in a "perfect" relationship.
Wow, just imagine, if that kind of cherishing sentiment could truly last as long in a long-term commitment. Just imagine, for that that's all most of us really can do.
just imagine.
*petal: v. graceful dropping of fingers across piano keys, the visualization of which would inspire a picture of slowly descending flower petals.
daily archives
l.m