It was still black in the bedroom, the light cracking under the sliding door to the bathroom still three minutes away from making its appearance, my wife, sitting with the dog while she ate. The dog, not the wife. The morning, ready to start, my brain slowly ratcheting towards 5:34 am, the bizarre time it's chosen to awaken more days than not. Me, looking towards the clock with surety that this is what the numbers will read. The numbers looking back as if to say "We got you fam!". 5:34. Nailed it.
A clicking of dog nails on a wooden floor, I can tell even as I stack the pillows behind my head that it's the younger one. Light and lithe, gaining momentum as she reaches the door and jump-floats across the 6 feet from the doorway to the bed, can hear my wife turning from the sink with a "GET DOWN!" before Juno's rear haunches land on the bed, a scramble, a pounce and four feet hitting the floor. The morning game. The dog somehow knowing that once my wife has left that she can jump up in peace. Dogs are way smarter than we give them credit.
All of the above happens under the aroma of thick black coffee. The pot, set diligently with twelve cups of water and twelve measured scoops the evening before. Coffee roasted nine point two miles from here. Family owned and operated for over 100 years. Always the darkest roast available. Sometimes losing the scoop count and the twelve cups gets thirteen scoops and the shock to system is palpable immediately, the brew, thick. Like "feel it on your teeth", thick. Still preferred 100:1 to weak coffee.
//
As oft happens, the last minutes of sleep were filled with vivid dreams. Trying to get from our cottage in Canada to the bridge in Detroit. I'm in a town but not the actual town our cottage resides in. It's completely unfamiliar. I'm against a deadline to return. I keep taking wrong turns, the gps somehow pointing but not guiding. The smell of the coffee, the sound of the nails on the floor, the stress of being lost in my dream and a single word, repeating over and over and over. Redolent. Redolent. Redolent. Redolent.
It's the type of word that seems at once familiar but at the same time could be nonsensical. In my waking mind I'm grasping for it. Holding on so I can look it up when I completely wake up. I try and hold it up front, so regardless of what it turns out to mean, I will at least have closure. I must find out. Nothing else seems important in this moment other than grabbing the google machine and typing it in to the best of my ability. Is it red-o-lent or red-a-lent? Grasping. Holding it tight. Ready to type.
Eight letters typed and I am rewarded for my mental grip.
redolent:
adjective
red·o·lent ˈre-də-lənt
1: strongly reminiscent of.
2:exuding fragrance : AROMATIC
a: full of a specified fragrance : SCENTED
air redolent of seaweed
b: EVOCATIVE, SUGGESTIVE
a city redolent of antiquity
My brain turns this over in what can only be described as shock and full knowledge. Of course my brain thinks of a word describing smell as memory while smelling coffee before I wake up. A split second of assuredness that this was the definition coupled with a single minded unknowing of what this word was come together with a warmth that washed over me instantly.
The mind, such an incredible machine.
//
For the next ten minutes I scanned the news and the internet of things for something, anything, of value. Per usual, I find nothing. I stop and go back to the word I awoke to and am somehow now confused. I misspell it and try multiple spellings. This yields a version that starts with "rid". The autocorrect internet searcher completes this as "rittner" and I am floored as a weblink for the band Rittner comes up.
This is baffling as Rittner was my band from the years 1997-2000. Who put this on the internet? It had to be me. I click and am rewarded with 5 songs I must have uploaded at some point in the last 20 years. I have no memory of this but know it has to be me because there's a song we never put on our first album staring back at me. I click it and the first three notes of Mercy Rule ring forth from my phone. A song I wrote in 1999 about the block I grew up on. No names redacted. An onslaught of nostalgia.
In a word. I'm delighted.
I copy the website and send it to a couple of friends.
I shoo the dog off the bed, get up, and shuffle to the kitchen for another cup of coffee.
#hugsandhi5s
You can hear the song here >>> MERCY RULE
Now that’s a solid wake up right there. Cheers to a great day!