His alarm goes off a 6:45 AM.
He looks wearily from his pillow across the room at his desk, where two monitors and a Mac sit framed by a window that overlooks the side yard of his 3 bedroom, one-and-a-half bath cape.
He lays in bed with his dog for another 15 minutes, scratching her behind the ear. Finally, he lets out a heavy sigh before rolling over, sitting up, and lowering his feet to the floor.
His 11-year-old Pitbull watches sleepily, yawning and stretching across the center of the bed. He turns to give her one more pat on the head, and her tail thumps the mattress in warm appreciation. Then she lowers her head and closes her eyes. She’ll sleep another hour before heading downstairs to begin her day.
He heads down the staircase from the upstairs bedroom, emptying into the sun-splashed kitchen. It’s one of the things he likes most about the house, but he’s not sure why. He gives this some thought and concludes it’s the practicality of going from a room where sleep still clings to you to a room where the coffee pot awaits. That design makes perfect sense.
“That must be it,” he mutters to himself.
He gets the coffee pot going immediately. He opens the French doors from the kitchen to the cement patio overlooking the yard. The grass is still wet from the morning dew; he walks out, sits on a patio chair, and waits for the coffee to finish brewing.
He starts to rethink why he loves the idea of a staircase connecting the kitchen to the upstairs bedrooms, which has nothing to do with coffee and sleep. He thinks the design decision harkens back to simpler days when the kitchen was the hub of family activity. And even though that was long before his time, the idea of it sits well with him.
In another hour or so, he’ll be back upstairs at his computer, looking at emails and preparing for meetings.
He can’t wait for the day when sitting on the patio is not a prelude to work but rather an interlude to a day without plans or schedules.
bendingtheneedle 