Morning Reflections

Grandma Stella woke up from a deep slumber to the sound of howling wind and her dogs’ unease, reminiscing about stormy nights by the sea as a young girl. As she realizes she’s now in the present, she embraces the solitude of her bedroom in the midst of a pandemic, marking the start of a new day with a sense of quiet determination.

I felt myself rising up through a grey fog of deep slumber. Higher and higher I rose until I reached the state of wakefulness. The wind screeched and howled, as if in agony. I heard the sound of my dogs moaning in uneasy fear. I turned my head from side to side, in this world of half sleep and half awareness. I slowly opened my eyes. It is dark outside. The lamp on my bedside table is lit. The bedroom is in half shadow. For a moment the wind takes me back to Bexhill on Sea and the waves crashing against the shore on a stormy night, when I was a young girl in boarding school. I then realize that I am in the present, in our bedroom. There is no Peter, there are no Picasso or Ebony, only me. I am not a young girl now, but an aging woman in a world filled with a deadly pandemic.

I sigh deeply as I rise out of bed. I switch on the radio to the classical station. I sit on the armchair and look out of the window. Slowly the winds die down and the skies lighten. They turn to a hue of pink. A new day has begun. I lean my head back and close my eyes once more. I briefly fall into a light snooze.

“Wake up! Wake up!” I tell myself. “It is time to start the day.”

I rise and slowly trudge downstairs. I fill up the cats’ bowl, open the back door. Arctic like air hits me to full wakefulness. Brrr! I place the bowl on the stoop for the cats and quickly close the door. In the kitchen, I start the kettle to make a pot of tea. My day has begun…