#12 Assembling the Day
- Shelley Dark
- Apr 24
- 2 min read
I once heard it said that if you‘re woken before you're ready, your spirit is still out roaming the world. Free of its body, untethered from mattress or obligation.
To be woken unnaturally, by noise, or another person, is to wake without a soul. And to remain so until later in the day, when the two finally find each other again.
In my version, both are annoyed about it. The body because the spirit, absorbed as it was in some selfish pursuit, didn’t bother to return on time. The spirit because the body lacked the discipline to stay asleep long enough to receive it.
Which has made me cautious here at the manoir.
It seems to me that a place like this has the rich embroidery of a well-practised soul—centuries of sleeping and waking, lives tied to it through births and deaths, marriages, breakups, harvests, famines, acts of love, arguments, wars, bad decisions, good ones—soaked into its walls.
And for this precious moment, it has gathered me into itself. Just enough so I’m careful not to carry even the smallest fragment of it with me—or drop it, if I do.
That said, after a week of late dinners, too much wine and always laughter, I suspect my spirit has occasionally missed its appointment with my body.
So each morning when I wake—to gloriously cold air, blue skies, birds carrying on like a subcommittee that’s lost control of a meeting—I proceed carefully.
I put on a jumper over my nightie and tiptoe, barefoot, down the creaking stairs to the kitchen, where Mirco’s golden light is already spilling through the doorway.
Yesterday, on a small detour, I found this freshly turned earth where a boar had spent the night excavating the lawn while we slept.
Mirco and I greet each other with warmth and speak of small things. He taps his watch to indicate I should already be at work as his sous-chef. He‘s already preparing for a day of meals.
Later, we’ll all be together—writers, tutors, and chef. You can tell how fond of them all I am already.
But I‘m mainly thinking about my coffee.
I make it strong. Double shot. Sugar—a purely holiday indulgence. Orange juice. An economical amount of muesli.
Then back upstairs, arms lined with crockery. Door nudged open with orange-painted toes.
And into bed again, two pillows stacked behind me.
To give everything—body, spirit, this place—a chance to find each other properly before the day begins. Though we're meant to gather for breakfast.
But we—the manoir and I—need to be fully assembled.
And ready to write.
I wait you,
