Waking Up

I took a nap for the summer.

I slept in the wake of funerals and baseball games and hot afternoons. I curled up in a nest of cool basement air, of inconsistency and laundry baskets and evenings on front porches in recliners.

I was in a coma of lust for life and other things, a trance of disproportion and an adventure that took me no where in particular, but home.

And home is where I hope to wake up.

A professor told me near the end of last semester that I was in a funk, and that a trip to DC would pull me out. It did something, but I think I ended up losing part of myself in the capitol's old thick air and its sidewalks, which seem to know more than those of Chicago or Denver. The city has been breathing. The people wake and sleep.

When I returned, I moved out of my apartment and into my vagabond summer, the strangest of my life. And though it had some of the best days I'll ever know, I look back on an October morning and laugh: wasted time and useless motions.

What did I read? What did I write? Where did I spend my weekday mornings? When did I run? Who did I love? Why did I cry?

All just to end up where I began, another midwestern girl in a small town with a wish to get out. But this time, things are changing: Maybe I'll go somewhere new.

In the summer slumber, I fell into some directional blindness. I saw nothing of where I was headed until I was there, in everything I did: where I lived, somewhere new nearly every week); when I worked, checking my schedule only the morning of; who I saw, making plans on my own whims and movement. All these things with no intentionality.

And now I feel invisible. Youngest person in the office and all us little women answer the phones: "Thank you for calling. This is Emily. How may I help you today?" followed by either, "Great, may I have your order number?" or "Alright, are you calling with one of our catalogs today?"

What am I doing? Still sleeping.

But the choice now is to be awake and wide-eyed and ready--for a campaign, for a crowd, for a move, a leap, a change. And I will be.

There is no excuse for the post-graduation summer to linger through October morning moons.

So I say, "Good morning Moon," and Mrs. Hill of Indiana puts me on hold to the sound of country music while I'm waiting for her credit card number, then I laugh, and continue, "Good morning Sun."

I'm waking up.