Our Morning

Today is that day, the one which is the same as every other but on which you remember to notice the splendour. You wake refreshed, no sleep pulling at your eyelids as you struggle to silence the enthusiasm of your alarm. You wake just before, in time to calmly note the hour and then lie in wait to stifle its shrill cry. The morning light does not simply stretch its usual reach across one wall but illuminates it whole and presses at the surrounding shadows. You do not slowly stage each movement of your tired limbs until you are standing; you throw the covers from you as if they were chains of bondage. Daylight and another day of free air beckons, the generous caresses of the winds, the music of the living world; no fingers crinkled in the shower or cereal laboriously shovelled as the news packages the world for you. Water from the tap barely whips at your skin, toothpaste smeared and left in exuberance at the corners of a curled mouth and food forgotten in your half-clothed race for the door. You have one foot over the threshold as you struggle on your other shoe and then you stop and stand; no race with eyes and feet aligned to drive or walk to gainful employment.

The day takes its own time to embrace you, introducing itself gently with its scent. The nearby sea rises into the air in the arms of the sun, sweating salt and the stench of seaweed to dry in your nostrils. It is the smell of boundlessness and it catches in your nose, so too the smell of the garden and the flowers cooking; petals sneaked open like bread crusts cracking in the warmth. Insects, so peripheral and yet adorned with intricate heraldry and artistry on their armoured skins; all awake too and dancing in the sizzling air. The fragrance of rubbish stages a final assault on your senses, sour-sweet and full of character like the red wine that congeals beneath one of the bags on the pavement. Spices and laboratory-flavours mix with old beer and rotten vegetables; ash and wood and meat combining too into a cocktail, as sack after sack of stories are pulled into the refuse truck which moves sluggishly closer in a whirl of industrious orange lights.

The roar of its engine marks the turn of sounds to play for your attention; your phone forgotten as its alarm snoozes by the bed growing cold and distant upstairs. You saunter down the short path to the street and smoke a cigarette or you do not – the day is yours – and you watch the dustmen toil; you wonder a little on the depth of their understanding of humanity as it is laid out for them road by road and then spread apart in the jaws of the crusher. Today you do not pass them by in a rush, you share a smoke or a word or more with one man as he hauls your own bags away without fuss; of course the weather is mentioned but you both have only compliments today. He takes one last amused look at your dishevelled appearance but respects the contentment in your bright face and happily bows to continue his work.

The sounds of communication, the jostling of waste within the plastic prison sacks, the chorus of seagulls eyeing the scene enviously; noises added to the celebratory chorus. A horn sounds from a passing car, at first a moment of menace in its shrillness until a waving hand distinguishes a friendly face within and you risk your dignity as you grapple to raise your hand from your pocket to respond. A smile breaks before the face whisks away and the car turns onto whichever roads it will; the sound of combustion and tyres over the snow-eaten tarmac raises the din around you. Humans are finally claiming the day and spilling from infinite doorways to glide along their own paths; the blue skies and clear white clouds and the floral bloom does still not quite compare to the dazzle of our individuality. Cloth statements with harsh hues and savage extremes, casual and well-worn costumes, uniform nonconformity, parodied fashion and glamour all bustle past; multicolours worn around pastel skins and from a watercolour of cultures. The world fills you with energy now, the activity around you like a dynamo churning purpose into you. You are not set to default today; not clocked in, logged on or unavailable but you still envy those now wending their way to such a fate as you long to know the intricacies of their day as they drift by.

You adjust your clothes, checking pockets for the bare essentials but indifferently as you know you have all you need. You have the promise of thrills at your whimsy, a box-set of hours and the choice of which to play in which disorder. You have legs connected to the already spinning earth, arms with which to shake hands and grasp adventure; your body fully charged by the elements and a soul resonating with intrigue. You take one more moment to enjoy the suspense, to hold in the fire; no starting pistol will sound but you are about to spill out into the city and into a swift but glorious sprint to bed. There is history to be written here. Today you will not be recycled, today you drift on the wind and float on the tides and when sleep comes on again your dreams will have become memories.