IBM ruined me.
When I worked there fresh out of college, they had this MARVELOUS arrangement called flex-time. If you got in a 7:00 am, you REALLY could leave at 3:30pm! And people ACTUALLY left at 3:30 pm! Home by 4:00 pm!
Well maybe my nephews ruined me.
In the long hot summers of high school, they’d swarm in our house around 7:00 am, and BANG, throw open my bedroom door and lunge into my bed to wake me up, bouncing and yelling.
Whatever it was, I am ruined for good. I can’t manage to sleep late and any attempts to do so leave me feeling slovenly and out of sorts. Today even my Saturdays go a little like this:
3:30 am: Pug #4 AKA “Little Girl” takes a post directly beside my husband’s head. In the dim light I notice her posture, which can only be likened to a vulture.
4:00 am: Husband twitches a muscle, somewhere, anywhere.
4:00:01 am: Little Girl frolics in our king sized bed “My Lord and Master is awake, my Lord and Master is awake!!!”
4:00:02am: Husband stumbles out of bed and heads for shower.
4:00:03am: All four pugs (in bed) migrate over me to the two inches of mattress between me and the edge of the bed. They sit and watch intently for their Lord and Master to get out of the bathroom.
4:20 am: In the bathroom I can hear The Lord and Master put his shoes on the floor prior to putting them on. This soft sound is followed by whoops of joy from the bed (but not from me) as the pugs practically shiver in anticipation of his return.
4:30 am: Coast is clear. Pugs and Husband OUT of the bedroom. Turn over for blissful sleep.
5:30 am: Husband comes into bedroom asking “Are you awake?” Well, yes.
And so my days begin. And now, I am in this habit, which can’t seem to be broken. Though I am slow to get going and I complain heartily, I love knowing the day will stretch ahead of me full of opportunities.
Back in the day I do remember something I most definitely WOULD have missed if I had slept in.
I was on a youth retreat – one of many I enjoyed with the Seaboard Baptist Church. They were held at Jordan’s Millpond – a gorgeous, distinctly Southern oasis. Central elements were the Mill House and the Mill Pond, complete with cypress trees from which Spanish moss hung like so many wispy gray beards. At times, there were peacocks, screeching their distinctive laments. There were flat-bottomed wooden boats for rent for fishermen, and wooden boardwalks, some criss-crossing from bank to bank and some mysteriously dead ending. And always, always, a musky scent of decay or as I know now, the scent of rich soil being born.
The overnight retreat was held at an appropriately quaint location. Around the millpond’s dogleg and just out of sight, was a cottage, owned by the Howell family I believe and built AROUND A SCHOOL BUS! I loved it! There was a great den with plenty of chairs, long sleeping porches, a full kitchen, bathrooms and a fabulous bus in the middle with cots for sleeping!
The retreat usually consisted of a few very intense bible study sessions held by the handsome, earnest, young Baptist preacher determined to save our souls, especially the Methodist kids since though we were baptized, we were not immersed, so we weren’t really saved. We had volleyball, cookouts, and lots of giggling. We all stayed up WAY to late talking and walking in this enchanted place, and finally one, by one the Howells, the Davis’s the Maddreys, and the few Methodists (me and Dean) with assorted guests (including my dear friend Jill), would find an empty cot and give it up to Morpheus, drifting off to sleep.
After one of these nights I woke up on the sleeping porch in the silent cottage at the first hint of sun. I remember crawling out of bed and stepping outside. The grass was wet with dew on my bare feet. The morning air was still cool as if just waking up itself. I drew closer to the end of the Mill Pond, to watch the first rays of light dance across the brackish sleeping water. A fine mist rose from its surface. And then I heard a gentle splash and to my astonishment saw a huge buck, with a fine multi-pronged rack slide into the millpond not far from where I stood. The swell of his shoulders as he swam through the pond to the other side hinted at both the power in his strokes and the depth of the pond where he traversed it. He swam straight across, slipping in and out of shadow and brilliant rays of morning light, then reaching the other side, hauled himself effortlessly out of the water and then silently vanished into the woods.
For once, I am quite sure I was at a loss for words.
Even now, I am overwhelmed just remembering this most beautiful of sights. And even now, I have the feeling that, I, well, really might miss something if I sleep too late…….
