Today I stayed in bed for 10 minutes after I woke up. For 10 whole minutes, I could suspend the to-do lists, the charging of devices, checking of schedules, replying to messages, and taking and giving morning medicines. For 600 seconds, I only paid attention to the softness of the pillow, the comforter, and my mattress and thought about how snug burrito filling must feel. The comforter, a Diwali gift from my first ever job, I refer to as Cloud. It is the lightest blue and it manages to be just the right amount of warm and cool. My body pillow Josh, which was bought after a lot of antagonizing and overthinking, felt like a good decision; so did the kitty arm pillow that covered my ear. R, who sleeps next to me, won’t wake up for 2 more hours. There is a softness to this predictability. I move around a little and press myself into these softnesses. I can wait 10 minutes to carpe another tedious diem.
From the girl- who in 10th grade stopped eating and sleeping, springing up like a tightly wound toy at 2 am every day, parroting the words from the History textbook she fell asleep reading, rocking back and forth…Page 12: Boston Tea Party, the Year 1773…in the shower, on the way to school, before going to sleep, on her way to ace the exam and mend her broken family; failing at which (the mending, not the exam) she would search her dreams for the Rosetta stone to her mother’s affection, give her something, anything to talk to her father about- to the woman who can make Mumma laugh every time, who stooped to uncle humor but finally gets along with her father, these 10 minutes took a lifetime to come by.
