What It Is Like To Sleep Later Than You Expected But Not As Late As You Wanted

It's only 7:23 a.m. on Sunday morning, and the sun, barely up, doesn't really help the light register as a day, yet: there is light in the sky but it's not the kind of light you would call day light.

More like pre-light.

Light anticipating the real light to come later on.

Let's be honest: you wouldn't be up yet, if you could have helped not being up, but let's also be honest, you've been up more or less since 5 a.m., less sometimes than more.

Five a.m.: a terrible time to be awake if you do not want to be. Morning news shows starting, Animal Planet shows about chimpanzees and killer whales, and an ostrich? You are propped up against the pillows, waiting for sounds that will wake you back up if you can fall back asleep.

Six a.m.: Not yet light outside.  Sounds from the boys' room. Stirring.  Mr F: he wants you to lay down beside him.

"Let's put in a movie," you say. The television is playing a Baby Einstein that gives them things to say in different languages. It won't hold your attention.  He pulls you by the ear to lay down by him in his closet.  You lay down by him in his closet.

6:10 a.m.: He is back asleep.

You creep quietly out of the room. You go back to bed. Sitting upright, eyes half open, propped up on pillows, wishing that all the sleep you did not get this week would come at once.  If they -- the people that do things -- can ever think of a way to pile sleep upon sleep, to have 8 hours of sleep layered on you instead of coming in waves, sleep piled up on you like blankets when you have the chills, what a miracle!

Seven a.m.: Mr F knocks on the door. He wants to be in the bed. He wants to be on the floor. He wants you to tickle him.  He wants to swing wildly back and forth nearly hitting the chandelier, motioning you away when you try to slow him down. He wants to spin and sing and smile and spin and swing and smile.

You want coffee.

Last night, you did not set up the coffee pot with water and grounds so that this morning you could simply hit the switch and brew it. You went to bed one minute earlier because of that, and now you will have your coffee one minute later because of it, a minute here a minute there a minute everywhere.

The last of the pills for your cough: it should be done today.  They taste terrible. You eat a black jellybean to mask the flavor left in your throat.

You drink some of the coffee, finally.

It's more... better if you turn off all the lights in the house and you and Mr F sit in the light that is neither light nor gloom -- it is something in between, neither hopeful yet nor dark still.

You want toast.

Mr F is slowed down now: he is on the chair, he has the blanket wrapped around him. He sits and looks at his bare belly, wearing only a pair of gym shorts, his belly is wrinkled and he watches it move.

You watch it move.

Upstairs: voices.

This part of the morning is over.