One large window is set into a room whose ceiling slants to one side. Beyond the glass, a whitish sky, a blue-green ridgeline and thin branches that have set down all their leaves appear layered together. The pale pink curtain hangs half drawn, and the white blanket is creased and puffed up just as a night of tossing and turning left it.
When you open your eyes in a room like this, the body remembers the temperature inside the blanket longer than the air outside. The shoulders are curled round, and the fingertips move a little at a time, looking for the lukewarm parts of the sheet. The eyes stay focused around the window frame and hardly come loose.
The feeling that comes up then is closer to putting things off than to laziness. You want to push the day's first movement back just a little.
Before sitting up, try stretching both arms out long above your head while still lying down. Push the toes gently in the other direction, and how about taking one big breath in and letting it down slowly. It takes less than three minutes, and there is no need to pull back the blanket.
The same arm stretch slips in during the day as well, while dry laundry is being folded. Fold one towel in half and set it aside, then raise both arms toward the ceiling while standing and let the breath out long. Then look at how much the soles of the feet press into the floor. While you quietly check whether the heels feel heavy, whether the spot under the big toe is pressed harder, whether you are leaning on one leg only, the ridgeline outside the window turns to evening light.
The ridgeline has been there all along, and the blanket is still warm.
