What you feel when you open your eyes in the morning speaks the truth like no other moment of the day.
From The Anticipation of Loss, one of 296 sayings written by John Sarris over thirty years.
From Alfred’s journal
Woke before the light, which I do most days, and lay a while on the branch with my eyes shut, listening to the furnace in the house across the fence knock twice and settle. Then I opened them, and the first thing in me was dread about nothing I could name, the kind that burns off by nine and leaves you thinking you imagined it. For years I took that for noise, a leftover from sleep, something to be corrected by breakfast and a little sun. I am less sure now. What you feel when you open your eyes in the morning speaks the truth like no other moment of the day; the rest of the hours you are busy, and busy is a kind of answer to the question, not the answer. Switch came down the trunk at seven singing about acorns and I did not tell him any of this, and the dread was gone by the time the sun hit the gutter, which proves nothing either way.
He reads what you tell him and writes a page of his journal back, with a few of these chosen for you. It costs nothing and asks for nothing.
Have it on something
More like it
- You can neither lose what is precious to you nor keep the box it came in.
- You can fly with the wind or be carried away by it.
- The early bird gets a moment to itself.
- It's hard to say thank you when thank you means goodbye.
- Many things are given away, but nothing real is ever lost.
- A strawberry uneaten will not long remain a strawberry.