Thursday, July 3, 2014

Waking early in Passaic



July 11, 1980

It is a weary morning and I rise with only a sparse five hours of sleep, and rain clouds hanging over head like unbleached laundry, not dripping yet, holding in their moisture the way my eyes cling to sleep.
The sandman dusted my eyes too well, and they feel a gritty as the sand my girlfriend carried back with her from the ocean side last night.
She still sleeps beside me, exhaling breathes thick with remnants of salt air. A few nights here in Passaic will rid her of that ailment.
She came back to the bicker of kids on the street corner and wallow of the drunks making their way from one bar to another. One of these wonderful fools lead us down Route 21 last night as I followed her back to her parents’ house to drop off her brother’s car, swaying from lane to lane with death defying feats that somehow he and we survived.
I sway the way the drunks swayed, but the best I can do in the way of death defying acts is to stumble from the bed to the bathroom to pee.
The world around me seems weary, too, and I wonder if I will become fully awake enough to welcome it when it finally wakes.
My girlfriend said she thought her life out. But I fear it may not have a place in it for me.
I’m filled with my own dreams and visions for the future, and fear these might interfere with hers. I don’t see how she can go onto what she wants, and still maintain anything with me.
She sleeps while I lie awake beside her. And is un-disturbed when I rise and go through the ritual of exercise I always do prior to my jog along the river. I am constantly conscious of the potential rain, and how quiet this morning is with only the muffled noises of more distant people and activities to hint of the slowly waking world.
I know I should lie down and seek more sleep, but I go out anyway, sneakers kicking up gravel in the carport as I head towards the river and up River Drive for coffee, the old river sluggish as usual, still full of sleeping things I can only imagine.


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