YOKED

The morning light licks the corners of my face, repeatedly, until I consent to opening my eyes. She makes her gradual way across the bed, nudging her most promising sign of hope unto the tossled ivory. The sun is far more gentle than any alarm clock I’ve ever fought, though no less insistent. In such radiant self-giving, how many times can I roll over? So we strike a compromise: I will flip my pillow and “rest” my head, but promise to keep my eyes a flutter, little windows parted slightly for the streams of her still light. Sometimes I up the bargain, telling her that there is really no better way to receive her glory, no greater praise of her warmth, than to surrender consciousness upon her lap, just a little. She will often reply by shedding new light upon the floor, warming a most suggestive path out into the kitchen. My stomach grumbles. Are you sure you don’t want to try freezing time again? I ask. You, me and the sheets, forever curled in our secret morning splendor...

She was entering her senior year, at “the college,” shorthand for Harvard University’s undergraduate school. But already she was planning to take her postgraduate career across the country to golden California. This much I overheard from a stranger, riding on the “T.” With one hand gripping a side rail and two feet spread upon the shifting floor, I stood, balancing the East Coast ride as if I were surfing the Pacific ocean. I laughed to myself about the irony of the ride and the Harvard student’s remarks: my home state was becoming her adventure destination, just as Boston has become mine. As I listened to her muse about the unique California culture and its endless sunshine, everything about her dreaming was immediately familiar. The wonder, the excitement, the stereotypical assumptions-all that goes along with moving into the unknown, it was all there, but written in the opposite direction of my own great move. California is as exotic to her, I thought, as Boston...