Saturday mornings began different ways as I grew up.

Some would start when I used my soft, kid-skin fists to brush the sleep out of my eyes. Sometimes this would of course involve some more digging: I’d get my finger and my bitten fingernails (a habit I’ve yet to break) to dig that last little bit of sleep out of my eyes. I’d twist my oversized T-shirt nightie back to normal with the front over my round, little-kid belly. I would sit up, and almost immediately, the vertical position would work its gravity and I’d tip-toe run to the bathroom down the hall to pee. Then I’d walk really quiet, like the kid detectives on TV, towards my parents’ bed, and crawl myself in between them. I’d position my face right in front of my Dad’s. My bouncy slitherings into the bed would wake him up, and as he made his first few blinks of the day, he’d see an out-of-focus daughter face with a big, silly grin right in front of him. I’d have to stifle laughter, not wanting to wake him up too uproariously. He’d smile back, once he could focus on my face and we’d both giggle. We’d lie in bed and I’d turn to wake my mum up by brushing my hands over her smooth, soft skin. This is what she’d to do me when I was sick in bed, and it always made me feel better. She’d smile at me with her eyes closed. I could still smell the hand cream she’d rubbed on her manicured hands the night before.

As I grew and slept longer than my parents, Saturday mornings began a different way. Bass would wake me from dream to eyes-closed awareness of my room around me. I’d feel my blanket cocoon, my sticking-out feet and the inevitable wedgie I’d developed from tossing in my sleep. I’d lie awake and pick out what song was playing downstairs from the bass line. I would wrap my fleece housecoat around my almost-pubescent body (read: still skin and bones, tall and awkward) and go downstairs. With each beige-carpeted step, my ears would get more melodic clues as to what the song was. It was most always a Beatles song, but sometimes it would be Santana, black Michael Jackson (is he grey now?) or maybe James Brown.
My Dad would be on the couch, with our cat on his lap. He’d be wearing his Saturday jeans: Holes in the knees, worn-in light blue and with a permanent wallet indentation in his back right pocket. He’d have a pile of papers stapled in the top left corner that he would be reading for work. Or his “list.” His list only came out on weekends. It was his list of things to do around the house, or his list of things to save up and buy. I would love accompanying him and my mom out in our minivan to do the things that would cross items of the list: picking up some bird seed for the feeder, helping my grandfather move something at his house or out to visit with people.

Saturday mornings are my own now, to share with fiancé and we create our own morning rituals.