Sunday morning. It is cold outside, but warm under the quilt. My husband is asleep next to me. Between us, my little black cat, Pixie, is grooming herself. Her small body rocks against me in a gentle rhythm as she licks her coat. On the other side of me, my sleek white cat, Winnie, is sleeping with her body pressed up against mine. The dogs are curled in their beds on the floor, their heads on their paws. Only one member of our six-member family isn’t here: One of our cats—a loner—sleeps downstairs. The rest of us are all snoozing in the same room on a Sunday morning.
I have always loved lying in bed in the morning, caught halfway between sleep and wakefulness. Sunday mornings are best, when I have no classes to teach, and a good excuse for taking things a little slower.
I am looking forward to our usual Sunday ritual. In a little while, John and I will get up, get dressed, and walk down to the Kingsfield Farmer’s Market for breakfast. I enjoy our walks across the park; the fresh, hot coffee; the sweet-potato tacos I’ll eat, sitting on a bench in the sun. And then, the shopping for winter squash, rounds of bread, fingerling potatoes, fresh collard greens. I think of our morning and pull the quilt up around my neck. I close my eyes.
Then, because I’m a writer, because writing is the way I walk through the world, I begin to think about how I will write about this scene. One moment, I’m relaxing, and the next I’m think of the words I will use to describe the warmth of the bed, my feelings toward my sleeping husband, my love for these animals. How will I capture the morning light filtering through the wooden blinds, or the glimpse of autumn leaves outside the window? What details will I pull from this moment to draw a picture of this Sunday morning?
And so, because I am a writer, because writing is the way I walk through the world, I am pulled out of this scene. I am no longer experiencing it directly, but standing just outside it, looking in. The scene is transforming itself into a piece of writing, words on a page that others will read. I am experiencing myself experience it.
Now, my husband is yawning, getting out of bed. Pixie jumps down and disappears into one of her hiding places. The dogs rouse themselves and follow John down the hall, knowing his rising means they will get fed soon. I sit up. The moment is over.
Later, I write the words—the only words I can find—to depict the scene of lying in bed on a Sunday morning. And as I write it, there I am again. Back in that bed. My husband. The two cats. The dogs in their beds. The morning light. Back in that experience I had hours earlier, that I lifted myself out of so that I could write about it.
It is the call of the writer’s life. To be willing to step out of the world, to stand apart for a time, to watch experiences become words. To trap moments like butterflies then release them on the page. There’s a sorrow to this capture and release. Because at times you want to allow the butterflies to just be and not try to turn them into words. You can’t help wondering if it wouldn’t be better just to lie in bed on a Sunday morning and not to be thinking of ways to write about it.
But in the end, you always go back to this stepping away, this searching for words. Because that’s what it means to write, to be a writer. It’s what you do.