The Calm Before the Storm

Saturday Morning; Ahhhhhh....

Sometimes I think I work all week just for Saturday Morning.  The rest of the week is scheduled by somebody else, not me. Occasionally my Saturdays follow someone else's schedule, but not very often. The whole family knows this is my time.

It's not that I sleep in; very rarely am I still in bed at 7:00. For some reason 5 days a week it is a struggle to drag myself out and kick start my day at 6:30-6:35-6:40/5...

But on Saturday I tend to get up easily around 6:30. Maybe its because I know I will not spend the next 2 hours rushing through a morning a morning procedure to be at my desk by 8:30. On Saturday I know That as soon as the tea is hot I'll will be relaxing with a hot cuppa at my desk at home. Reading the comics instead of emails; surfing the net for something interesting, not searching the database for an answer to some question. Or I can fire up Netflix and watch a show or two. My choice.

The other part of Saturday morning I enjoy is the solitude. I am just about the only person in the house who doesn't think sleeping in is the way to start a Saturday. Occasionally there is a straggler, escaping over the wall from Slumberland to meet a commitment, like work, or I will get a visitor from Sleepytown on an errand for personal business, before they return to the comfort of their beds.

But for the most part is is just me and the dogs, and even they are usually slumbering; taking advantage of me being up to slack off on their duty to keep us and the house safe, and taking advantage of the quiet to relax a little more deeply than usual.

Today we are starting to get hints of the future; days in which I abandon the desk and computer for the porch swing. I don't know who invented the porch swing, but I sure hope they were properly rewarded. He (or she) was probably an early riser too. It's hard to imagine that the porch swing wasn't invented for Saturday morning. Especially one in Spring.

Sitting out there with a hot cuppa tea, slowly swinging back and forth, seeing and hearing the world come awake around you, as you are beginning to gather your thoughts and collect your senses, preparing for when the world is awake and assaulting you from every angle.

The sights vary with the countdown to summer; trees starting to bud out in leaf; the daffodils first poking up a thin green shoot and to suddenly burst into flower. the grass turning greener almost by the minute.

The sounds vary as well, but less so. There is always the bird noise twittering and calling as they start their daily chores. And there is always the sound of a distant screen door, banging back into it's frame, followed by a car starting and then the crunch of gravel as some neighbor starts there Saturday differently than I do mine.

But that is the future. Today I enjoy the quiet of the household. A silence so deafening I can hear the ticking of the clock in the living room. A quietude broken only occasionally by the creak of a bed as the occupant stirs, or the snort of snore from a sleeping dog, or the regular quarter hour chiming of the living room clock. And, of course, the rhythmic clicking of my keyboard.

But then above me a floorboard groans, protesting being rudely awakened, and then the stairs join in the chorus, each adding its own note to the sudden symphony of sound of a slumbering house slowly but surely coming to life.

The solitude is over. Life begins again and I am forced to join in.

And wait seven more days for Saturday morning.