The Computer
It is 7:30 AM and my mind is alert, swimming with today's magic: conundrums unsolved, mysteries unraveled, puzzles growing and not diminishing.
The promise of Ambien CR has been fulfilled: I have had 7 and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep; and awakened without hangover. But now, in the twilight of awakening, mental life bursts from its deep sleep. Thoughts move up from deep forgotten dreams to emerge into a soft velvet world of vivid ideas, new and forming, sentences and concepts battling any possibility of renewed sleep.
Yet I stay in bed another hour, negotiating with these ideas, asking them to remain memorable while I sleep another hour. But the mind, fearing it will forget, overwhelms it. One must arise, and record.
I am in San Francisco, three fourths through my acting workshops: They were Saturday and Sunday, now Monday night and Tuesday night. Tuesday morning; I should be more tired, but instead the swizzle stick of teaching has stirred up my thoughts, like alcohol stirred up from the bottom of the glass, molecules equally distributed up from below, swirling, ready to offer me the buzz if only I will place the glass to my lips and swallow.
I get up.
I look to the left, my wife is still asleep. She is the caregiver of my aging, the pixie who pricks and deflates all over-weening possibility of preening. I laugh, sweetly yet ruefully at the thought.
I carefully throw off the covers, stand, make my way to the light switch, turn on the the soft hotel light over the computer, open it, press the on button, and wait for the machine's circuits to awaken and join mine, in remembering and recording the new thoughts of awakening.
I ear a ping, and my fingers begin.
The promise of Ambien CR has been fulfilled: I have had 7 and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep; and awakened without hangover. But now, in the twilight of awakening, mental life bursts from its deep sleep. Thoughts move up from deep forgotten dreams to emerge into a soft velvet world of vivid ideas, new and forming, sentences and concepts battling any possibility of renewed sleep.
Yet I stay in bed another hour, negotiating with these ideas, asking them to remain memorable while I sleep another hour. But the mind, fearing it will forget, overwhelms it. One must arise, and record.
I am in San Francisco, three fourths through my acting workshops: They were Saturday and Sunday, now Monday night and Tuesday night. Tuesday morning; I should be more tired, but instead the swizzle stick of teaching has stirred up my thoughts, like alcohol stirred up from the bottom of the glass, molecules equally distributed up from below, swirling, ready to offer me the buzz if only I will place the glass to my lips and swallow.
I get up.
I look to the left, my wife is still asleep. She is the caregiver of my aging, the pixie who pricks and deflates all over-weening possibility of preening. I laugh, sweetly yet ruefully at the thought.
I carefully throw off the covers, stand, make my way to the light switch, turn on the the soft hotel light over the computer, open it, press the on button, and wait for the machine's circuits to awaken and join mine, in remembering and recording the new thoughts of awakening.
I ear a ping, and my fingers begin.
posted by Cliff Osmond at 7:24 PM
3 Comments:
"Thoughts move up from deep forgotten dreams to emerge into a soft velvet world of vivid idea"... Are you kidding me? You make my mind want to explode (w/joy) the way you write in such VIVID COLOR. Its so precise its almost excrusiating ... Ahh ... to be in your brain for a day, that would be some kind of ride.
Thank you. Praise is aways a stimulant; in this case, a nudge to write more. And thank you in general for reading these musings of mine.
"these musings" are a potpouri of stimulation ... I never know what I will find. A beautiful passing thought, more life knowledge, more Sophia (and the obvious joy she brings), political information, a sharp as a razor world view on some current affair, seriously funny shit ... and the common denominator and huge perk being that it is ALL fantastically well written. Fuck the NY Times ...
Post a Comment
<< Home