I love the early hours of morning. I wake, no longer needing an alarm to prompt the act of coming alive, as the windows in the bedroom show the early grey of day. No brilliant sun, just the hint that morning is breaking, with a nod to the Cat man. However, sometimes it is the sound of the fucking woodpecker attacking our house that rustles my ear and brings me out of slumber – the little asshole.
Even in the winter, as I live in California, the window is cracked just a tad. I have a hunger for fresh air and only close it up when there is what has become proverbial smoke in the air. I have no desire to set you to peals of coughing from bad air. But there is a crispness to the early morning breath, it tastes fresh and clean. Occasionally, after external, rambunctious nights, it can be spiced with a touch of quarrelling skunks.
Newly arrived in our lives, there is now the smell of the dog, who has taken up residence between us on the bed. I am unsure if he thinks he is protecting you from me or just wants a spot at the warmest juncture between us. But his puppy smell is in the air, too.
But mostly it is you I smell. Your long blond and graying hair drapes close to my face and if I turn your direction, I can still smell your shampoo and cream rinse, slightly tangy with a hint of lavender. I can move closer and can scent your sleep, warm beneath the winter comforter; your perfume emanates from the spot your shoulder lifts the blanket open. You smell of warmth and wonder and in thirty-six years I have never stopped enjoying that invitation to peaceful rest. It is a snuggle smell. I am tempted to move the dog and get closer, but I would have to get up and disarraying the covers would allow it all to escape, and probably wake you. Not that such an event couldn’t provide its own benefits.
Sometimes, there is that scent, too. Leftovers from the night before still permeating the air. A smell of passion with hints of wine and sweat and sharing. Those scents have more punch, more undertone, more tang. They roil up all the feelings that have filled my life and ferried it along this windswept world.
We have spent more than 13,000 days intertwined and every new day declares itself faithful to all those that came before. The second built on the foundation of the first, number 13,141 pays homage to 10,000 as well as two or ten or any of those between. In all those nights turned morning I could catch your smell before I opened my eyes and feel comfort – you are present. You are a present. You have been the gift sustaining my day-in-day-out. The smell of you always leads my day.