Today, I Woke Up

Anyone who knows me, knows that I spend the majority of my time at the library. I even have a specific place in the basement where I like to sit. My friends, when they cannot get a hold of me, know exactly where to go...down the curved staircase, past the government documents, science and psychology books on the right with the literature, computer-science and math books on the left and over by the square-windows...there, you can find "my" desk.

I love how I can see trees wave to me. I try and figure out the names of the trees. I think there's a juniper and an ash. My favorite is the pine. I like to look at their arms when I get tired of reading. It is winter, so all but the pine are bare, exposing their tender veins which remind me of dendrite webs.

I imagine my brain is made up of countless tree branches upon smaller tree branches, their expanding twigs stretching out to almost touch one another, the synapses gaps keeping them eternally apart.

So, I spend many hours trying to read, but the tress usually have their way of distracting me. When it grows dark, their bodies are still there.

In the library basement bathroom, there's a sign someone put up on one of the doors. I noticed it a couple days ago. It reads:

Today, I woke up and ______________

When I first read it, I was having one of those days where words are dry bones. Where I'd sit and count lines on the back of my hand, wondering when the gods of the library would appear. Where did they go? Where is their joyful dust? I'd ponder my palms, the lines God drew before I breathed the cosmos in my lungs. Bits of dust, dust, dust. I couldn't write. I was uninspired. I was stubborn and raw.

I read the note on one of those days and felt a simple voice inside whisper "Today, I woke up and...."

I woke up and read, I thought. I woke up and I tried to write. It wasn't anything brilliant or even coherent. But look! It is true!

Today, I woke up and read, wrote.

Today I woke up and

and do we love this minute? Do we notice it's clothing? Do we wake and breathe? Yes. Surely, we breathe.

It's easy to forget. This morning, I woke up and.

And I cried, thinking I wasn't listening to you. Thinking I was losing track of the words. Thinking my mind was blind and the library gods thought me a bad steward.

It's easy, so easy to forget. This morning. How there are trees that keep their heart-wood radiating from the inside out. How there are friends longing for our voice, how our parents still wake, astonished we were born.

This morning, I woke up and loved you.

Sometimes, there are signs.

I don't know who put up that sign in the bathroom. But Thank You. And thank you Sarah Lawrence, for encouraging the spontaneous, creative spirit that reminds me....

Today, I woke up.