Getting out of Bed

I woke up this morning thinking about a response to an exercise I gave the students in my memoir writing class yesterday. We had discussed the use of sensory description, dialogue and action in writing about a location where they used to live.

The exercise was to describe getting out of bed and moving to another room; not just telling about it, but enabling the reader of the story to see what was happening. Show don’t tell – one of the principles of writing. I’m trying to use the principle in the book I’m writing, Cat Skinner: A Story of Lust, Love and Loss in the 1930’s, but here’s my own response to yesterday’s exercise.

Light filters through my sheer curtains, teasing my eyes to open. My alarm with its incessant beeping brings more than a tease to the process. I slap it quiet for another seven minutes and roll from my left side onto my back. I love stretching like the cat beside me. Pointing my toes toward the end of the bed, my elbows are thrust toward the headboard, fists on either side of my neck. Maybe a strange way to stretch, but it frees spine and muscle kinks until my calf threatens a Charlie. Not Charlie my dog, but Charlie, my horse. I let up on the toe pointing and relax, until the muscle spasm subsides, and then return to my fetal, left side position. Just a few more minutes in this warm, toasty environment won’t hurt.

The alarm beeps again, quietly at first and then louder and louder until I can’t ignore it any longer. One more slap to shut it up. There have been times when I’ve let it go on and on because in a half sleep, dream state, I’ve imagined it was a truck backing up. This morning I got the message without a garbage truck in the room.

I slip my feet off the side of the bed, the rest of me following into an upright position, however reluctant certain body parts are to follow others. My toes slide into my slippers. I sit on the edge of the bed, turn off the alarm, stand up and shake down my older than dirt, purple, granny nightgown. Love the thing. (Girls, feel free to bury me in it. I’m sure you won’t want an open casket anyway, so no one will know the truth of the matter).

Walking to the door of my bedroom and down the hall to the bathroom is dangerous business. The same cat whose stretching I emulate, enjoys weaving in and out of my legs as I walk. While silky soft against my legs, Riley’s erratic movement keeps me guessing about where I step next. 

Charlie, my dog, is behind the gate in the utility room, just across from the bathroom. He’s deaf, but when it comes to the possibility of getting fed in the morning, he knows I’m up and with paws up on the gate, in all his Malti-poo cuteness, he whines until I give him what he wants, one-third cup of dog chow. (Of course, he wants more, but unlike me – he’s on a diet).

And so my morning begins - every morning, although now that I’m retired, I must admit, some mornings look more like Noon.