What I think about upon awakening

I’m watching my birdies speak with each other – sometimes, actually, it sounds like they’re speaking at each other. They will touch or interlock beaks. Or one will pursue and mock-peck the other, then alternate, down this long pipe-perch I provided – kind of reminds me of Punch and Judy. If I’m really hard-up for meaning (and self-amusement), I’ll narrate, “And so goes the eternal battle for good and evil” (to which I imagine they’re thinking, “I wonder what he-who-feeds-us is thinking?” Maybe I’ll get out of the house today.

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A woman I was e-dating asked me what I think about when I wake up. As I had responded to her other queries, as I could relate to and answer them, I thought I could let this one go. When she asked again, several emails later, reminding me I hadn’t answered, I felt on the hook like I was in a job interview and perhaps in the annoyance I’ve blotted out how I answered. I imagine I still had no answer so fabricated a reasonable one rather than admitting I had no answer and seeming vacuous or even dim-witted. And I do recall being concerned for myself as to why I had no answer and that indeed I might be those very things I feared she might conclude me to be.

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This morning I realize what I think about – providing I’m not leaping out of the bed to start my day, which I tend to do during the week both because I leave myself limited time to get ready for work and because I fear that if I dally at the hour I may get a morning seizure, (something which brightening the lights and getting up quickly seems to avert). This morning I reflected on my dreams. In the last snippet, a Frenchman was speaking to me and I had a hard time understanding him as I don’t speak French (yet) but was trying. But anyway, enough about him. So when I give myself the luxury of a slow awakening, I recall my dreams, starting with the last segment and, as I’m making my way to the bathroom, I’m following the thread to the previous segment. I’m not very good at interpreting the symbols (though I have an ex-girlfriend who is spot-on) so I limit myself to what I was feeling during the dream, my general state of being, as I take these to be what’s going on for me, period.

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It feels good to realize this, to finally have an answer for that woman (having completed one more question on that long-expired job application), an answer for me, and to know I’m not so vacuous as I once feared. (No, I never actually believed I was dim-witted.)