Friday, November 11, 2005

Mornings Like This

When I wake up, my body is weak and my head is full of germs and I can feel that beyond the boundaries of my covers is cold air, an apartment with cold walls and cold floors and cold doors. Fall has hit is peak, I think to myself. I am happy. Then I sneeze. I am sick. When it is colder outside, just before it begins to snow, the light is different. I stumble through my apartment, an apartment that is dark...well into morning. I like it. I want it to stay dark like this forever. I want time to stand still right now so I can just sit here in the briskness of my apartment, my body tired, my mind turned to mush and enjoy the dark of my home. I realize that is an alarming thought. So I turn on the light. When I shower, I take a minute and look at myself in the mirror. I look tired. Haggard. Oddly enough I always think I look sexiest in the morning...but not this morning. After I shower I stop and look at myself again, only this time the mirror is covered with a steam induced mist. Through the haze, I look like the me I like to look like. But that is not me. Since I have abandoned my workouts and began eating my way through my depression places where my skin and muscle was tighter, have gone soft. While I haven't gained too much weight yet, I have gained just about enough to make me feel sicker than I am. I blow my nose. On fall mornings like this one, when the air and the light is crisper and clearer, 11 am can feel like 8 am. As I begin making my coffee and eggs, I love the feeling of 8 am. But when I realize that it will be noon by the time I'm finished I feel the familiar panic rise inside. All the things I have yet to do. Have always yet to do. Then...as the butter warms in the skillet, I think of my Grandpa. Mornings like this remind me of him. I can remember slinking out of my bed to the cold, cold floor, my nose practically frozen. Slipping into a hot, hot shower and letting the steam fill the room. And when I got out, ready for coffee and bagels, he would be sitting in his spot on the couch, book in hand, coffee at his side, glasses perched on his nose, classical music playing. Just there. Something about the thought comforts me. So I turn off "Primetime in the Daytime" and I slip in Midori's violin concertos of Mendelssohn & Bruch and I let it play. And I know I should be worse off than this right now. I know I should be worrying and feeling helpless and nervous...and in a way I do. But I let the music come first, just for a little while. I let the memories come first, just for a little while...and I try to shed some light on the hole I'm in. Because down here, we can use all the light we can get.

No comments: