In Which I have an Early Morning

May 4: Three Gifts Before 9 AM

1.  Flora and Ulysses at 4 AM in the morning

2. Peppermint Tea and Tums for an unhappy stomach

3. Watching/Listening to Elijah Wood read Me and My Cat

Stretched out on the couch (more like scrunched up, because it’s so short), I breathe slow to calm myself. I am alone in my island of light. It’s 4 am, and the darkness seems oppressive at the edges of the light. Waking up with a stomach ache is bad enough, not being able to get back to sleep is even worse. Especially when you know you. Need. The. Sleep. And I tell my body, “no, not this morning, please! Let me go to sleep!” I can get a little panicky if I try too hard to fall asleep with no success, and with enough repeats of nights like these, I have found the best thing to do is to not try to sleep. To try and trick my body into thinking that all I want is to stay up and do something. Or think about something. Then my rebellious body will most likely cause me to fall asleep. So that’s what I do. I grab the book that I’m reading, Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo, and go out into the living room; turn on the spot light that makes the brass of the fireplace shine golden. It’s the perfect amount of light, enough to read easily, but dim enough to encourage sleep at the same time. I laugh as Flora smuggles the squirrel Ulysses into a donut shop, where the super powered squirrel goes from being caught up in the waitress’s hair to flying through the air, avoiding the angry chef brandishing a flashing knife. Then smack! the poor squirrel hits the glass door. His first three thoughts after the collision causes me to giggle again; “I flew! Where’s Flora? Is that a piece of donut!?” I let the book fall a little and I sleepily contemplate Ulysses’ love for Flora. It’s so pure and sweet, completely free of romance. The concept of love is so much more than kisses and hugs. Love is the pure song of the heart that warms even on the stormiest days, it’s the smile that lights up your face when a good friend walks into the room, it’s laughter with family. Ulysses wrote a poem (yes, a squirrel!) about that feeling, when he looked at the grass and sky and Flora, and I absolutely love it!

“I love your round head,

The brilliant green,

The watching blue,

These letters,

This world, you.

I am very, very hungry.”

And I fall asleep with these warm, happy thoughts drifting around in my head. When I wake with a start, I look at my watch; 6:39 am. At least that’s an extra hour of sleep. But I’ve got to get up. Gotta get ready for church!

Because my stomach is still grumbling against me, my diet for breakfast is very frugal. Peppermint tea, a Tums, and a strawberry fruit bar. Peppermint tea is “my” tea. I asked Mom to get it for me when I found out about its health benefits. Now, whenever I either need to make sure my stomach stays happy with me, but especially when it gets grumpy, I have a cup. But one thing I’ve forgotten lately is the psychological benefits of simply slowing life down and drinking the tea while looking out the window in the afternoon. I don’t do that enough nowadays.

I take the tea up to the computer room. Yesterday I found a video of Elijah Wood (my favorite actor!) reading a book called Me and My Cat. I left the window up, deciding that I’d find time to watch it sometime later. I decide that sitting and sipping a cup of tea while trying to not be stressed about whether I can make it to church or not is the perfect time to listen to a picture book being read aloud by my favorite actor. Little Sister comes into the room. Whenever I talk with her about Elijah Wood, or show her something about him, I feel guarded. Because she’s got (or had?) a crush on him, I dread what she might say. My response usually is “No, he is not ----! He’s cool, that’s all. Don’t be disgusting!” She’ll just laugh at my good natured outburst. She’s used to me acting like this whenever she talks about a guy in the wrong way. I’m afraid our views of the male population are as different as black and white. But still, we both enjoy sitting there, listening to the story.