You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy™
The morning pet.
The bedroom is still and quiet.
It’s that twilight time when sleep still saturates your brain like a deep fluffy pillow. But awake is stirring, pawing at your neural net, letting your body know it is time to get up.
Is it a dream? Are you awake? What time is it?
Is it dark because your eyes are closed or is it because the room is dark and the sun has yet to crest the horizon.
It’s one of those mornings.
I’m awake. My eyes are closed. My brain is engaged.
The thoughts are percolating through my skull like hot water diffusing through a packed coffee filter.
Drip. Drop. Like little gasps of hot caffeinated steam, my ideas begin to churn, to flow, unchecked, unregulated, like a flood gate spilling wildly.
Work and money and weather and traffic conditions.
All of them surge against my frontal lobe like a storm surge carrying debris from everywhere, all at once.
After a moment, the darkness in the room yields to a muted grey.
It’s subtle, but the day is dawning. I can feel the sky yawning, stretching just outside the window.
The neighborhood is beginning to stir.
I hear a truck roll down a road in the distance. The driver lets off the accelerator on the hill and the engine automatically downshifts to slow the big rig.
I hear a bird chirp in a nest across the street. I wonder if the bird is new, perhaps a baby just hatched.
It’s ground hog day and I’ve lived this moment before.
My phone is on the night stand, but I don’t have to look at it to know.
It’s set for 6:30am, but I don’t need to see the time.
My alarm is poised, like a digital trip hammer, ready to blare out the obnoxious tone of the day.
But I don’t need the alarm. I am awake, my body clock ticking with awareness.
The room is now bathed in an ethereal orange, as if painted by angels with the Department of Transportation.
I know the moment is close.
And with that realization, the alarm sounds. It is one part siren one part air raid shelter warning system.
If we were in school, we would get under our desks while our teachers told us this is just a drill.
If I was Submarine Commander, the sound would compel me to pull the key from around my neck and put it in the console and wait for further launch code instructions.
I let the alarm ring twice. It sounds like lions mating at the foot of the bed.
I tap the stop button.
The room is quiet, replaced by a new energy.
I hear a collar tinkle, metal on metal.
I hear a ballet company of toe nails tapping in military precision on a hard wood floor in the hallway.
I hear a yawn, and a stretch, and then the force of energy rushes into the room.
The black dog rounds the corner of the bed and thrusts her head into my outstretched hand.
Her skull is powerful, but soft like smooth velvet. She pushes her warm nose into my hand and almost pets herself.
I smile as my fingers extend scratching her ears and top of her head.
If she was a cat, she would purr. If she was a dove, she would coo. But she is a trusty Lab and she just pants rhythmically.
She is in Lab heaven. In this moment, she is thinking about Milk Bones slathered in gravy. She is thinking about squirrels who are not so fast and a tree not so close. She is thinking about new tennis balls, thrown in a perfect arc, silhouetting against a boundless blue sky, falling into a lake so still it is a mirror of possibilities.
As I scratch the black Lab, feeling her contentment, I relish the morning ritual. The darkness, the glow, the sonic burst and the unadulterated affection.
This is the morning ritual. It’s as dependable as the rising sun.
As I throw my feet over the side of the bed and let blood and gravity do what they do, the lab smiles at me. She’ll never need a time piece, but she has an extraordinary sense of time.
It’s 6:32 am and she wants to run and fetch and eat and do what dogs do. But right now, she is content. She is happy for the alarm, for the morning pet, for this ground hog moment that begins our day each morning.
Life’s Crazy™